Stairway to Heaven
by thebabyisalrightthebabyisok
Summary: Five survivors fight to stay alive in a journey that will take them far beyond the city streets of Los Angeles.
1. Prologue

A young man quietly walked down a city street. He knew there was a Smoker around; he had seen its long tongue shoot out, he tried to kill it earlier, but it got away. The man could feel his pulse pounding, what if it grabbed him? What if his friends didn't hear him cry out? What if he slowly breathed his last breath, cold and alone while being slapped silly by a smelly zombie with a ridiculously long tongue? It was odd, because he had seen the tongue, he was sure of it, but he didn't hear any coughing. Smokers always coughed, it was a dead giveaway that one was around. Why wasn't this one coughing? Was it some sort of special Smoker? What if the zombies were further mutating? The thought of more special infected sent shivers down the man's spine.

The man felt something wrap around him. It was slimy and sticky, the Smoker had gotten him! He tried to turn around and face it, but the tongue was already firmly around him, he couldn't move. He tried to wiggle free as he was slowly being dragged towards the zombie. The man tried calling out to his comrades, but the tongue was firmly around his throat, he couldn't get the words out. His worst fears were coming true; he couldn't see any of his friends. He panicked and looked around, but there was no one there to help him. Just when he thought that all hope was lost, he saw a familiar face.

"Hey Chris, hurry up! We're not gonna wait… holy shit! Smoker's got Chris!" Kelly screamed as she fired her pistol at the source of the tongue.

"Kelly, hold your fire! Ted! Drop him!" Joe commanded.

Chris felt the tongue loosen; eventually he landed on the ground. He looked up to see his fellow survivor, Ted, standing on a rooftop with that stupid smile he always had.

"God damn it Ted, god damn it," Chris muttered to himself.


	2. The Five That Remained

The five survivors finally reached safe house. Chris felt secure behind the steel doors. He sat down on a chair in the corner and looked at the four other people that had become his family.

Kelly was Chris's childhood friend; he had known her since fourth grade. Their relationship was a bit strained during high school, and they hadn't seen each other in four years, but when they met up at a safe house in Los Angeles it was like nothing had even changed. She was a bit of an airhead, but she was reliable, and Chris couldn't think of anyone he'd rather have with him during a zombie apocalypse.

The other three, however, Chris had never met before. They were three brothers from a town called Mushroom Hollow. Chris had never heard of the place. Like Chris and Kelly, the brothers were vacationing in L.A. when the infection broke out.

The youngest of the three Text brothers was Ted. Ted was truly a sight to behold. Chris couldn't stop staring at his head, which was horribly disfigured. The top half of his head was gone, and the bottom half was horribly stretched out. He had only four, bizarre, curly hairs that stuck straight out of his head. On top of his strange appearance, he was cripplingly retarded. According to his brothers, his I.Q. was only four. Chris didn't want to believe that, after all, he wouldn't be able to function with an I.Q. that low. But Ted was no ordinary person, as proven by his freakish Smoker tongue. Needless to say, Ted wasn't allowed to hold any weapons.

The middle child of the Text family was Fred, quite possibly the laziest asshole who ever lived. He did nothing but complain about the current situation and eat. Chris suspected he was hoarding food. Apparently Fred has been mooching off of Joe's money and food since the day their parents died, not working a day in his life.

Which brings us to the eldest child in the Text family, Joe. Joe had become the de facto leader of the group, making plans and deciding where to go. He had a strong aura of leadership around him and he didn't take any bullshit. A side effect of putting up with Fred and Ted for so many years. He was also the only person on the entire planet who could pull off a mullet without looking like a complete redneck.

Ted had found a fridge in the safe house. He opened it up and, to his delight, found that it was filled with different kinds of cheeses. He promptly started using his tongue to clean out the fridge. Kelly cracked up.

"Joe, your brother is the coolest person ever," Kelly said.

"Aw thanks, I feel loved," Fred replied.

"I was talking about Ted, douchebag. No one likes you." Kelly said.

"Tell you what Kelly, if we survive this, you can keep him… Hey Ted! I found you a new best friend!" Joe called out. Ted ignored Joe, for he was still completely focused on the cheese in the fridge, which was rapidly disappearing.

"He's delighted. Any chance you can take Fred too?" Joe asked.

"Why would I ever do that? I could just empty my fridge, burn all of my money, and have Chris come look down my shirt every five minutes and get the same effect." Kelly said.

"I don't need anyone to take care of me, I'm not retarded." Fred said.

"OK Sir Self-Reliance, then how come you've been mooching off of me for all of these years?" Joe inquired.

"Why would I ever get a job? Those Cheetos won't eat themselves you know!" Fred replied.

"Maybe if you had a job, you could buy all the Cheetos you want! You could make a house out of Cheetos somewhere far away from me!" Joe yelled.

"Come on guys, fighting will get us nowhere!" Chris yelled. Joe sighed and looked at the group.

"Chris is right. I think that's our cue to turn in for the night, we can get moving in the morning. Let's see if we can find some sleeping bags."

The four sane people started looking around the safe house for supplies. The place was small, with only a single room in the back. Kelly opened the door, inside was a small bed with a closet in the back.

"Dibs!" Kelly said. She walked to the back of the room and opened the closet door. As soon as she opened the door she was pounced by a Hunter. She started screaming for help. Joe ran in with a shotgun and killed the Hunter, while Chris helped Kelly up.

"You alright?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Bastard ripped my favorite hoodie though…" She looked over her shoulder and saw a pile of sleeping bags in the closet.

"Well, on the bright side, there are some sleeping bags for you guys to use." Kelly said as she pointed to the pile. Joe, Chris, and Kelly carried the sleeping bags out to the main room, where Ted was enjoying some Lincoln Logs he discovered and Fred was rummaging through Chris's bag.

"What are you doing?" Chris asked. Fred turned around, his faced stuffed with food. Chris punched Fred in the face.

"That was the last of my food!" Chris yelled. He pulled his pistol out of its holster and pointed it at Fred's head. Fred screamed, barely audible with all of the food in his mouth.

"MMMMMFF JOE MMFFF!" Fred yelled. Joe walked over and grabbed Chris's wrist.

"Calm down Chris, I'll give you some of my food." Joe assured. He then looked at Fred, and told him that if he kept causing trouble that he was sleeping outside with the zombies. Fred nodded, and Joe turned around and started walking towards Ted. There was a pile of cheese sitting next to Ted's Lincoln Logs. Joe picked up some cheese and threw it into the bedroom.

"CHEESE!" Ted yelled as he ran into the room after it. Joe slammed the door behind him.

"Hey Chris, can you hand me that chair?" Chris obeyed and gave Joe the chair. Joe propped it up against the door handle, locking Ted in.

"Sorry Kelly, we can't have Ted roaming around out here. He'll do something retarded, like open the safe room door for a Tank or something." Joe explained "If you want you can sleep between Chris and the wall. I assure you that Fred won't try to rape you."

"Fine, but I'm sleeping with my gun just in case." Kelly said as she got into her sleeping bag. Joe shut off the lights as Chris and Fred got into their sleeping bags.

"Rest up everyone, tomorrow's gonna be a long haul." Joe said.

Chris tossed and turned in his sleeping bag, he couldn't sleep. How could he? There were hordes of hungry zombies just outside the safe room doors waiting to get a piece of him. He may have been nabbed by Ted last time, but what if it was a real Smoker next time? What if no one was around to save him? He had seen all of the horrors awaiting him the previous day. His spine could be snapped in half by a Charger, he could painfully burn in a puddle of Spitter acid. His mind raced with all of the different kinds of infected. But he kept focusing on the Witch. Her haunting cries rang through his mind over and over again. He had seen a man get ripped to shreds by a Witch, Chris was thankful at the time that it wasn't him who pissed her off, but now he had come to the realization that there were more Witches than he could imagine, and even one wrong move around them could cost him his life. As he was thinking of this, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Chris nearly jumped out of his skin; he turned around and saw that it was only Kelly, who looked extremely concerned.

"Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me!" Chris whispered, not wanting to wake the others.

"Sorry," Kelly whispered, "Are you OK? What are you still doing up?"

"How can I sleep? There are zombies outside! They could find a way in at any moment!"

"Chris, calm down. They're not gonna come in here. We're gonna be fine." Kelly said.

"I'm just so afraid that I'll lose you again…" said Chris.

"I'm not going anywhere Chris. We'll be together from now on." Kelly assured him as she put her hand on his. Chris smiled; Kelly knew how to make him feel better. Whenever Chris was around her, he felt like everything would be OK, no matter how horrible the situation was. Kelly smiled back at him, but that smile quickly turned to a frown.

"Listen, do you hear something?" Kelly asked. Chris listened carefully to his surroundings. He could hear a rumbling in the distance. His eyes widened in terror. They both got out of their sleeping bags and stood up. The rumbling was getting more intense, they could feel the room vibrate. They heard a ferocious growl in the distance.

"TANK!" Kelly screamed. Joe and Fred got up out of their sleeping bags. Fred walked over to the safe room door.

"You guys sure?" Joe asked. Kelly nodded.

"Yeah, I see him," Fred said. The Tank came to the safe room door and tried to punch it down, but he couldn't.

"Hah! Idiot, score one for humanity!" Fred said. The Tank walked away from the door. Fred looked puzzled, usually Tanks wouldn't stop until either their prey was dead or the Tank was. Just as Fred peeked through the safe room door the Tank burst through the wall next to him. Fred screamed like a small child and ran away as the Tank barely missed him.

"Forget the supplies! Get out of here!" Joe commanded. Chris and Kelly pulled the metal bar off of the other safe room door and ran out, followed by Joe and Fred. They all started running for their lives. Joe stopped for a second for a roll call. One, two, three, four… someone was missing. Joe realized in horror that he had left his brother back in that room alone with the Tank.

"Shit! We forgot Ted! Does anyone still have their gun?" Joe yelled.

"I do!" Kelly replied as she pulled out her pistol and ran back into the safe room. The Tank had punched through the door that was holding Ted back and was about to crush him. Kelly unloaded a clip of ammo into the Tank.

"Go!" Kelly commanded.

"Me need cheese!" Ted said as he started picking up his cheese pile. Kelly dodged a blow from the Tank and grabbed Ted by his shirt collar.

"We'll get you more cheese! We need to go!" Kelly said. The Tank was blocking the door, and they had nowhere to go. The Tank started charging toward them. All of a sudden they heard a large shotgun blast; the Tank stopped and turned around to see Joe holding a shotgun unloading all the ammo he had into him.

"Kelly, Take Ted to Fred and Chris!" Joe said as the Tank started coming after him. Joe led the Tank out through the hole in the wall it originally came through, while Kelly took Ted out the door and back to Fred and Chris, who were running towards the safe room.

"Fred! Watch Ted for a minute! Chris, come with me!"


	3. Flame On

"Where's Joe?" Chris asked while he was running back to the safe room with Kelly.

"The Tank's after him, that's why I brought you along. Look around the safe room for some decent weapons!" Kelly said. They re-entered the safe room, neither Joe nor the Tank was anywhere in sight. Chris hurriedly looked around the safe room for supplies. He picked up his pistol from the ground, as well as the SMG that Fred was using. He looked over at Kelly, who was over by Joe's stuff that he left behind. She picked up a device that looked like a huge, steel, megaphone.

"What's this?" Kelly asked. She noticed a trigger on the device and pulled it, a stream of flames immediately shot out of the front end and nearly burned Chris.

"Jesus Christ, watch where you point that thing!" Chris yelled. "Where did Joe find a flamethrower? Why is it so oddly shaped?" Chris asked.

"You think I know? Who cares? We need to go save Joe!" Kelly replied. The two ran out of the hole in the wall created by the Tank and called out for Joe. There was no response. They couldn't hear the rumbling anymore, did Joe kill the Tank? Did the Tank kill Joe? These questions raced through Chris's mind as he raced down the street, shooting some infected in the head along the way. He looked in front of him as he reloaded his pistol and saw that Kelly was a pretty good distance ahead of him.

"Of course, she's always been faster than me." Chris thought. Suddenly a large, gray figure zipped past him and took Kelly with it. The figure pulled Kelly all the way across the street. Eventually it stopped and lifted Kelly up.

"Chris! Charger!" Kelly cried out. Chris immediately started unloading the ammo in his SMG into the Charger. A single bash from a Charger could probably snap her spine. The Charger fell over and dropped Kelly, and she fell to the hard concrete. She got herself up. She didn't look so great. She staggered around for a minute, trying to regain her center of balance. She wobbled into the street and slammed right into a car. The alarm on the car started blaring just as Kelly regained her balance.

"Oh no…" Chris whispered. They looked around and saw hordes and hordes of infected running their way, climbing over cars and fences to get to their delicious brains. Chris started firing the rest of his SMG ammo into the oncoming horde, while Kelly used Joe's flamethrower on any zombie that came too close. After a few minutes of seemingly never ending zombies, the car alarm stopped and all of the zombies were dead.

"I can't believe we survived that," Chris said. However just as Chris said that his eyesight was gone, and he felt a huge weight on his head, and he was being pulled around everywhere by the thing on his head.

"Jockey!" Chris yelled to Kelly. Kelly responded quickly by using the flamethrower to burn the Jockey. Unfortunately, she didn't bother getting the Jockey off first.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'M ON FIRE!" Chris screamed as he panicked and ran in circles. Kelly quickly ran over to him, dropped him to the ground and rolled him around, putting the flames out. He gasped for air as he got back up.

"You know, it would have helped if you got the damn thing off me first!" Chris shouted. Kelly shrugged her shoulders.

"Chill out Papa Sass, I was in the zone." Kelly replied. Chris stopped and stared at her for a few seconds.

"What did you just call me?" Chris asked.

"Don't think about it too much, I certainly didn't. Come on! We still need to help Joe!"

They continued running down the street, thankfully the car alarm had cleared out any nearby zombies, so it was a fairly straight shot. They eventually heard the growls of the Tank again, they stood around for a minute trying to deduce where the sounds were coming from. They tried their luck and ran behind a large building into an alley. As they ran through the alley they could hear the sounds of the Tank getting closer and closer. They ended up on the opposite street where they saw Joe standing on the roof of a small building, hopelessly firing his shotgun at the Tank, who responded by throwing cars at Joe. Joe tried to signal the other two to get out of there, but poor Kelly didn't get the message.

"DON'T WORRY JOE! WE'RE HERE TO SAVE YOU!" Kelly yelled as loud as she could. The Tank turned around to see both Chris and Kelly standing there. Joe slapped his forehead and the Tank charged towards both of them. Kelly responded by charging towards the Tank as well, brandishing Joe's flamethrower. She was about a foot in front of the Tank when she started torching him. The Tank's skin lit up like a bonfire as he screamed in agony.

"Yeah! Take that King Kong!" Kelly shouted. She didn't let go of the trigger as a stream of flames bombarded the Tank. Joe was climbing down off of the roof and Chris watched the show from afar. Suddenly, Kelly heard a clicking noise from the flamethrower and the flames stopped coming. She looked at the gas dial, which was on the letter E.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-" she yelled. The Tank punched Kelly before she could react; she went flying into the air Team Rocket style before she hit the side of a building and collapsed on the ground.

"Kelly!" Chris screamed. He started to run over to help her up, but then he remembered that the Tank was still there. He turned around and saw a car flying through the air, Chris sprinted out of the way, and the car barely missed him. The Tank then gave chase. It was still on fire, and it was mad. Chris led it down the alley he came before, at the same time unloading all of the ammo in his SMG and pistol clips into it. Chris clumsily tripped over his own feet once he was out of the alley. He immediately got back up, but his little slip up had given the Tank time to get closer to him. Chris ran behind a car for cover.

"_Wait a minute… shit!_" Chris thought. He immediately took a few steps back from the car and dropped to the ground. Just as he suspected, the Tank came over and hit the car, sending it flying far above him. The Tank raised his arms, Chris closed his eyes, waiting for the Tank to strike him, but it never came. Instead, he heard a loud shotgun blast. When he opened his eyes, he saw Joe pointing a shotgun at the flaming stub of where the Tank's head used to be, supporting a weakened Kelly with his other arm. Chris stood up and walked over to them.

"Are you OK Kelly? That looked like it hurt like hell," Chris said.

"Good thing I'm a superhero," Kelly said, smiling. Chris smiled back and helped Joe keep her up as the three started walking back to the old safe room.

"That was close," Joe said, "Where did you leave Ted, Kelly?"

"I dropped him off, told Fred to watch him." Kelly replied.

"That must have been a pretty hard wall, because you clearly aren't thinking straight. Chris, where'd she leave Ted?" Joe asked.

"She's not lying," Chris said. Joe immediately stopped.

"You mean to tell me," Joe started, "That you actually left Ted with Fred?" Chris nodded.

"We're talking about the same Fred and Ted, right? You're not playing some sort of trick on me? Because no sane person would've left those two alone, I'm going to ask you again, where is Ted?" Joe asked again.

"This isn't a trick Joe; they're back near the safe room together." Chris told him. Joe was speechless, he couldn't think clearly after what he had just heard. His face turned bright red, his combination of rage and fear manifested as pure adrenaline, because he managed to lift Kelly over his head, and start sprinting faster than he ever had before towards the safe room.

"Good God Joe, what are you doing?" Chris could hear Kelly yell in the distance. Chris laughed; it was a pretty funny sight. He then started chasing after them; after all, you don't want to be left alone in a zombie apocalypse.

When Chris finally caught up with them and got back to the formally safe room. Kelly was sitting down in a chair with her leg propped up, and the elder two Text brothers were arguing. Chris didn't see Ted anywhere.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!" Joe screamed at Fred.

"Do it!" Kelly said.

"Shut up! Do you have any idea how bad this situation is right now?" Joe scolded.

"He's Ted! He's too stupid to cause any trouble!" Fred yelled.

"What happened?" Chris asked. Just as Chris said this, Ted walked out of the small bedroom, his skin was pale, his face was covered in disgusting looking boils, he was coughing a lot, and these weird spores were constantly coming out of his skin.

"Ted's infected!" Chris exclaimed.

"No shit Sherlock." Fred remarked.

"Why isn't he attacking us?" Chris asked.

"Dude, it's Ted, He probably doesn't even know he's supposed to be." Fred said.

"But doesn't the infection damage the brain? I thought the zombies attacked because their brains were wrecked or something." Kelly said.

"What's there to damage?" Fred remarked. Joe sighed as he started loading up his shotgun.

"I guess we'll have to put him down." Joe said. He pointed his shotgun at Ted, but Kelly slowly got up on her gimp leg and start slowly limping between Ted and Joe.

"…"

"KELLY FOR FUCKS SAKE WE GET IT!" Joe yelled.

"He won't hurt anyone!" Kelly pleaded.

"He's a zombie Kelly, ZOMBIE! You know those things that are trying to eat us? The ones we've been killing for two days now?" Joe said.

"But it's Ted, and Ted is awesome!" Kelly said. "Could you really shoot your own brother?"

"Yes," Joe said. At this point Smoker Ted wrapped Joe with his tongue and dragged him over, proceeding to give Joe a hug. Kelly walked over and made this a group hug. Amused, and secretly wanting to piss off Joe, Chris walked over and joined the hug. It wasn't long before Fred joined in as well. Joe was not amused.

"I hate you all. Fine, Ted's new Smoker form can come with us. But if he attacks anyone, I'm shooting him," Joe said as he broke apart the group hug, "That leg looks pretty bad Kelly, does anyone have first aid?" Joe asked.

"I do! Here Kelly, let me heal you up…" Fred said as he started walking over to her.

"Touch me and I'll shoot you. Give the health pack to Chris," She commanded. Fred mumbled something unintelligible as he handed the health kit to Chris. Chris started tending to Kelly's wounds as Joe made an announcement.

"Once Chris is finished we need to get out of here, I think we can make it to CEDA's evac station by nightfall if we move quickly."

"Screw CEDA, I've got a better idea." Fred said.

"I'm not trusting you with anything, not ideas, not plans, not weapons, not food, especially not our lives. We're done with you, shut up forever," Joe told him.

"Seriously Joe, do you think CEDA is gonna help us? They were supposed to control the infection, and look how that turned out!" Fred said.

"What's your idea then?" Joe asked.

"Foo Quizzy Q was doing a show in town before the infection hit…" Fred started.

"Foo Quizzy Q? He's still alive?" Chris said.

"Probably, he's a true and honest gangsta, no zombie will touch him."

"That's not what I meant…" Chris began, but he thought to himself for a second and let Fred continue.

"Anyways, Foo Quizzy Q's shows are always one hell of a light show. I say we use it to signal a helicopter. I know where the stadium he was performing at is, and it's on the way to CEDA's evac point anyways, if my plan doesn't work we can always head there," Fred said.

Joe pondered Fred's idea for a minute.

"Yeah but…" Joe began. Fred and Joe continued arguing for a few minutes. Kelly and Chris ignored them.

"Who's Foo Quizzy Q?" Kelly whispered; Chris laughed.

"My grandpa used to listen to Foo Quizzy Q. He's old as fuck, and the funny thing is, I don't think Fred knows this. He's about to learn a harsh truth about one of his heroes… maybe I should tell him?" Kelly starts laughing after hearing this.

"Don't tell him. I want to see the look on his face." Kelly said. Chris finished bandaging Kelly's leg and Kelly stood up.

"Thanks oh dearest Christopher, my true savior," Kelly said.

"OK smart-ass… hey guys, you decide what we're doing yet?" Chris said.

"We're gonna stop by the stadium on our way to the evac station. I guess it couldn't hurt… let's go guys." Joe said, and with that, the four survivors and their infected companion walked out of the safe room door, into the streets of the Los Angeles.


	4. QFest

"So guys, what special infected do you think you'd turn into?" Kelly asked.

"Now's not the time Kelly." Joe replied. The four survivors and Ted continued walking through the streets of L.A. as the sun rose; stopping every few seconds to kill the occasional zombie.

"I'm just trying to make some conversation…" Kelly whined.

Joe shook his head and said, "We're all alone, surrounded by zombies. I think we should be focused on other things than what zombie we would…"

"I'd totally be a Tank." Fred cut in.

"Doubt it fat-ass. You'd definitely be a Boomer. I think to become a Tank you need to do more than sit on your ass and eat Cheetos," Kelly said.

"Maybe Tanks like Cheetos," Fred said.

"Doubt it," Kelly said. She paused for a minute and looked at Fred before she said, "You know, I change my mind. You'd make a fantastic Charger," Fred smiled and stood triumphantly.

"Well, I am pretty strong." Fred said as he flexed his muscles. Kelly made sure that Fred wasn't looking, then turned around and looked at Chris, who was walking behind her. She clenched her right hand into a first and started shaking it up and down, mouthing the word "wanker" to Chris, Chris laughed.

"I think you'd be a Smoker, Chris. You're a pretty tall guy, and you've even got the same jacket," Kelly said.

"I don't smoke," Chris said.

"Neither did Ted," Fred said.

"Well Ted already had the freakishly long tongue." Chris argued.

"How many of those things have we killed, like 200? Do you think all of those poor bastards had tongues like Ted?" Fred asked.

"So nobody's asked me what infected I think I'd be," Kelly said. Chris decided to humor her.

"Gee Kelly, what zombie do you think you would be?" Chris said in a monotone voice.

"Why thanks for asking Chris! I'd definitely be a Hunter." Kelly said gleefully. Fred got a confused look on his face.

"All Hunters are male. So unless there's something you're hiding, I see you more as a Spitter." Fred said.

"Oh please, I'm too beautiful to be a Spitter. Besides, who says that all Hunters are male? Have you seen their cocks? Have you Fred? Are you gay? Are you gay for zombies?" Kelly said.

"No, I'm not. But I'd love to hear your reasoning behind you becoming a Hunter." Fred said while wearing his hat that is red.

"Well, the Hunter is a pretty cool guy, and I'm a pretty cool girl, he's wearing a hoodie, and I'm wearing a hoodie, the Hunter wants to pounce on top of Chris and rip his nipples off, and I'm about to pounce on top of Chris and rip his nipples off."

Kelly turned around and leaped into the air and on top of Chris, she knocked him to the ground and kept him pinned. She smiled and said, "I are teh Hunter. Watch meh pownce."

"'K Romeo and Juliet, get up, we need to keep moving," Joe said.

"Sir yes sir!" Kelly replied. She got off of Chris and extended her hand out to him to help him up, Chris was about to grab it when Kelly turned her head and saw a rotting corpse holding a katana.

"HOLY SHIT NINJA SWORD!" Kelly yelled as she ran over to it. She tried to pry the sword out of its hand, but it wouldn't let go. She pulled on his wrist to try and get it out and accidently pulled his hand off with the sword. She continued to try and pry it off until the rotting hand finally fell to the ground.

"See Chris, I told you I'd be a ninja one day! That day has come!" Kelly said triumphantly.

"Outstanding. I feel so much safer now," Joe said as he sighed and shook his head, "Fred, do you know where we're going?"

"Yeah, this way, to the left," The rest of the team started walking that direction while Fred stopped and thought to himself. Joe noticed Fred wasn't following them and turned around. Fred said, "Actually, I think it's this way."

"You sure?" Joe asked. "You know, we need to get to CEDA's evac station in case this doesn't work."

"Positive." Fred replied as he walked in the opposite direction of the team. The other four started following him. They walked down the street, clearing out all of the zombies around them before Fred went into a tall skyscraper.

"Where is he going?" Joe said.

"Should we follow him?" Chris asked.

"No! Let him get pounced or charged or smoked or jockey'd or whatever," Kelly said.

"Sorry Kelly, but he's the only one that knows how to get to the stadium. We better go get him." Joe said as the other two humans and Ted the Smoker followed him inside. They saw Fred enter an elevator, and they ran to get inside before the door shut.

"Alright, you guys are coming too!" Fred said gleefully.

"Where are we going?" Joe asked.

"To meet Foo Quizzy Q! He's at the top floor of this hotel, Room 909. Don't ask me how I know that." Fred said.

"What about the stadium? What about rescue?" Joe yelled.

"We'll go there next, but maybe Quizzy can fly us out of here in his private helicopter!" Fred said. Joe slapped as forehead as the elevator reached the top. The doors opened and Joe, Chris, and Kelly walked out of the elevator. Smoker Ted started to follow them, but Joe directed him back into the elevator.

"Maybe you should stay here Ted, I don't think this Foo Quizzy Q guy would take too kindly to Smokers." Joe said. Ted smiled stupidly, nodded, and walked back into the elevator. Joe saw Fred still in the elevator unzipping his supply bag.

"You coming Fred? This was your horrible idea after all." Joe said.

"You guys go ahead, I have to get ready. I had all this stuff ready for Q-Fest before the infection hit." Fred said.

"Q-Fest? I… never mind. Chris, Kelly, let's go." Joe said. The three walked down the hall, looking for room 909, when they found it, they saw the door was slightly cracked open. Joe opened it completely and walked inside. When Chris walked in and saw, to his surprise, that Foo Quizzy Q was sitting on his bed. He had to try hard to not laugh. Quizzy looked like he was about 100 years old, he had the most wrinkled skin Chris had ever seen, and he was round. Like, REALLY round. Like 600 pounds round. His teeth were either yellow or rotting, and the icing on the cake was the ridiculous, gray, cube shaped hair.

"Who you foos?" Quizzy said.

"Are you Foo Quizzy Q?" Joe asked. Kelly stood behind Chris, biting her lip. Chris noticed.

"Don't you dare say anything," Chris whispered.

"Yeah, das me. Whaddya want?" Quizzy asked.

"We were wondering if you could somehow get us a ride out of here." Joe said. Foo Quizzy Q rubbed his chin in thought.

"You foos here for Q-Fest?" Quizzy said. Kelly opened her mouth to say something, but Chris elbowed her in the side to shut her up.

"You want a ride out of this city or not?" Chris whispered to her.

"Absolutely! We love your songs!" Joe exclaimed.

"What's yo fav?" Quizzy asked.

"Oh… that's hard… there are so many great ones…" Joe stammered.

"Straight Down Her Cerebral Column!" Chris yelled.

"Damn, you got some fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine taste son. Awright, Imma let you guys on my choppa. Let me call my choppa pilot and ask if he's got room for three mo" Quizzy said as he pulled out his phone.

"_Thank you gramps!_" Chris thought as Quizzy started dialing his phone.

"Shit, fucking phones, how do they work?" Quizzy said. At that moment Fred ran into the room wearing a monocle, a duck bill, and a top hat.

"Foo Quizzy Q! I… OH MY GOD! YOU'RE OLD!" Fred screamed. Joe's face turned bright red and Chris slapped his forehead.

"Das right foo. I must say I like yo style a whole lot." Quizzy replied.

"But that 'How to Become a Rapper Video…?'" Fred said, Quizzy laughed.

"Foo, I made that vid back in the '40s… man that takes me back." Quizzy started laughing more, but his laughter soon turned into coughing. He then started clutching his chest and dropped to the ground; he started rolling around and coughed more. He grew disgusting boils on his face and started making disgusting sounds, as if he was about to throw up.

"He's infected! Don't worry guys, I got this!" Kelly yelled as she ran over to him, brandishing her katana.

"Kelly, wait! I think he's a…" Joe started. But it was too late; Kelly had already swiftly brought her sword to Quizzy's plump body. Quizzy bloodily exploded and knocked everyone backwards, covering them in a disgusting slime."

"Boomer." Joe finished, as he started wiping the puke out of his eyes. They listened as they heard knocking on doors, there were still infected in the hotel.

"Run back to the elevator!" Joe ordered as the team clumsily stumbled out of Quizzy's old room. Chris couldn't see a thing; he stumbled around and tried to find his way to the elevator. He had gotten separated from his team, and with all sorts of special infected around, that was the worst thing possible. He could hear the horde coming, but he couldn't see them. Chris was frightened; he checked his jacket pockets for anything that could help him. He felt around until his hand came over a metal object with some sort of glass surface on it. He pulled it out and tried to get a closer look at it. The glass surface was a light bulb, and the metal object was a pipe bomb.

"_Perfect,_" Chris thought. He raised it over his head, and pressed the button that made the alarm go off.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Chris yelled as he threw the pipe bomb. It started beeping, and he could hear the horde gathering around it. He couldn't see a thing, and the beeping was getting faster and faster, he was about to run away from the beeping when he felt a tongue wrap around him.

"SMOKER!" He yelled as it started dragging him. After a few seconds though, he felt the tongue let go, his vision returned, and he looked up and saw Ted standing there, smiling as he stumbled into the elevator. Chris ran in after him without hesitation. Joe slammed the "lobby" button as he got in and heard the pipe bomb explode.

"Thanks Ted," Chris panted. The team was silent for a few seconds; Fred felt the need to break this silence somehow.

"So, I've been thinking; let's assume we're the last people on Earth. We're gonna have to repopulate once all this is over…"

"Fred, I wouldn't sleep with you if you were the last man on Earth," Kelly interrupted.

"That can be arran-" Fred started.

"Point your gun at me and I'll fucking drop you." Chris and Joe said in unison. Fred sighed as the elevator opened. The team walked out and back onto the streets from which they came.

After going all the way back to where they were, the group of five finally ended up at the stadium Quizzy was going to perform at. Fred gleefully ran in and started babbling as he ran to the light switches.

"Alright guys, we can use Quizzy's sick sounds and lights to call for a helicopter! I'm gonna turn it on, you guys ready?" Fred shouted.

"Fred, I'm not so sure about this!" Joe shouted back. Chris wasn't paying attention to either of them, because his worst fears had come true, he completely drowned out the two brothers arguing, he drowned out Ted's coughing, and he drowned out Kelly's voice, asking him if he was OK. He was focused on one sound entirely: crying.

And it was coming from the stage.


	5. Straight Down Her Cerebral Column

"Come on Joe, what could possibly go wrong?" Fred shouted.

"A lot of things!" Joe yelled back. "Your plans haven't been fantastic thus far."

"This one is! Trust me!" Fred yelled back. Joe was about to shout something back to his brother, but he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and saw that it was Chris. Chris pointed to the Witch that was sitting on the stage. Joe's eyes grew wide in fear, and he tried to signal to Fred that there was a Witch on the stage. Fred ignored him as he continued fiddling with the light and sound options. Fred hit a few buttons, and the stage started flashing different brightly colored lights. The Witch noticed, and she started growling. Joe, Chris, and Kelly all started waving to Fred, not wanting to make sounds and piss the Witch off anymore than needed. Fred simply waved back, and Joe slapped his forehead.

Fred then turned on the music and started cranking up the volume. The speakers on the stage blared with the heaviest bass that Chris ever heard. Fred then turned on the spotlights, which shined right on the Witch, the Witch stood up; she was getting mad now.

Chris looked around and considered his options, the Witch would attack at any minute now, but who would she attack? Usually the Witch attacks whoever angers her, but would she be able to tell that it was Fred working the lights and sound? After all, Chris, Kelly, and Joe were standing much closer to the stage than Fred was. Chris thought about running, but he didn't want anything bad happening to Kelly or Joe, and even though Fred was a douchebag, Chris didn't think anyone deserved to get mauled by a Witch.

Chris spotted a scoped hunting rifle in the stands; he ran towards it and picked it up. He looked through the scope and aimed right at the Witch's head. He wouldn't let her hurt anyone.

"Chris, what the fuck are you doing?" Kelly screamed. Chris fired a shot from his rifle; it was followed by an ear piercing shriek that even overpowered Quizzy's obnoxious music. The Witch spotted Chris in the stands and started running towards him. Chris started unloading all of his ammo into her.

"_Damn,_" Chris thought, "_This bitch can eat bullets,_" He reloaded his rifle and looked up; the Witch was running up the stands at him. Chris immediately dropped the heavy hunting rifle and pulled out his pistol. He started running while unloading all of his pistol ammo into her. When that ran out he simply started running for his life. He could hear her catching up behind him, but he didn't dare look.

Suddenly, the Witch let out another scream; again, Chris didn't bother looking. He simply kept running. She continued screaming, but Chris noticed that these screams were getting more and more distant. Chris stopped and looked behind him. Joe was keeping a concentrated stream of flame on her with his flamethrower while running towards the stage. The Witch seemed a bit slower than before. Joe and the Witch ran right past Kelly, who was standing there, staring at the two in awe. Joe seemed to have the situation under control, he climbed and the stage to get the high ground and tried to run some more, but he tripped. Joe kept shooting the Witch with flames from the ground, but the Witch ran right through them, with the single minded pursuit of ripping Joe to shreds. Kelly noticed this and sprinted as fast as she could over to the two, brandishing her katana. She got right behind the Witch and lifted the katana over her head before she brought it down as hard as she could. The Witch let out one final scream before she was split in half straight down her cerebral column. Kelly helped Joe up as Chris ran over to check on them.

"Thanks for that," Chris said to Joe.

"That was probably the single worst thing you could've done at that moment," Joe said. Fred walked down the stands back to the stage where the other three were.

"There we go! This should be a good enough signal. Now all we have to do is wait for a helicopter!" Fred said gleefully, oblivious of the Witch and the events that just happened previously, the three Witch hunters gave Fred a nasty glare. Joe opened his mouth to yell at Fred for his stupidity when they heard another loud scream. Or rather, screams. They turned to the entrance of the stadium to see a massive horde of zombies entering.

"Good going Fred," Chris said.

"Well guys, looks like we're making our last stand on the stage," Joe said. Chris panicked, he had dropped both of his guns in the stands, and he wouldn't have any time to run and grab one of them. Kelly nudged him and gave him the pistol that she was using earlier.

"Take it, I'll be fine," She said as she held up her katana. They stared at the oncoming horde of zombies.

"Well, it was good knowing you guys," Fred said.

"I still hate you Fred," replied Kelly. Smoker Ted, noticing that his comrades were up on the stage, joined them and stupidly stood behind them, grinning.

Chris and Fred were the only two holding guns, so they picked off as many zombies as they could while they were climbing up on top of the stage, if any zombies got through, which they often did. Joe or Kelly would incinerate or cut them if they came too close. It was a system that worked well, but of course, there were problems.

Chris tried to prioritize his targets when killing the oncoming zombies; after all, a Charger was far more dangerous than a regular zombie. So when he saw the Hunter leaping at them from the stands, naturally he focused all of his firepower on it. Unfortunately for the team, that means he missed the Spitter that crawled up.

The Spitter hacked up a huge glob of acid at them. Fred noticed it and shot it, but by that time it was already too late, the Spitter had released her acid. It slowly started covering the entire stage.

"Get off the stage!" Joe yelled. Because there were less zombies coming from the sides of the stage, naturally the team ran there. However, Joe and Fred ran to the right side of the stage, while Chris and Kelly ran to the left. Ted didn't even realize there was acid and remained on the stage.

Chris and Kelly backed up to the stadium walls, trying to keep all of the zombies coming from one side. Kelly crouched down and Chris shot over her head. The system wasn't nearly as effective without Joe or Fred to help control the horde. Chris suddenly felt something slimy wrap around his throat.

"_Oh no…_" Chris thought. The Smoker dragged him off his feet and towards the stands. Suddenly he felt another tongue wrap around his legs, coming from the stage. He looked at the stage and saw Ted, pulling for all his might to keep Chris away from the other Smoker's clutches. Chris felt like he was getting torn in half; neither of the Smokers seemed to be "winning". Chris tried calling out to Kelly, but she was focused on slicing zombies, and the Smoker's tongue was firmly around his throat, keeping him from being heard over the extremely loud music.

Fortunately, Kelly noticed that the pistol shots had ceased and briefly turned around. She saw the game of tug-of-war the Smokers were playing with Chris. She was baffled and looked at both the Smokers over again. She then ran over to the stand-Smoker's tongue and severed it with her katana. Ted was still pulling with all of his might, and he ended up dragging Chris back onto the stage. Not wanting to be all alone, Kelly sprinted over to both of them. Ted released Chris, and Kelly helped him up. They noticed that on the other side of the stage Fred had been taken by a Jockey, and Joe was spinning wildly in circles, shooting flames everywhere and burning a shitload of zombies. Chris and Kelly sprinted over to them, nearly getting burned by Joe's flames. Chris pried the Jockey off of Fred, and Kelly brought down the katana on the Jockey.

"What happened?" Chris asked Joe.

"Boomer…" Joe grumbled.

"Look!" Kelly shouted, pointing to the sky. A helicopter was flying overhead. The survivors dashed to the stage and started waving their hands, trying to attract attention to them. They also were all shouting things like "over here" and "come get us" at the helicopter. The helicopter shined a light at them to signal that it saw them. The survivors breathed a sigh of relief.

"See Joe," Fred said, "I told you this would work!" The helicopter seemed like it was about to land, when suddenly a huge block of concrete flew through the air, struck it, and sent it crashing to the ground. When the helicopter hit the ground it erupted into flames. Joe, Fred, and Kelly were all staring at the helicopter in disbelief. But Chris was focused on a much more pressing matter.

"TANK!" Chris yelled as he pointed to the left-hand stadium wall. The whole team looked to see the Tank charging at them. They started running to the right, but there were hordes of zombies still pouring in through those doors.

"Talk about being between a rock and a hard place," Joe muttered. He looked around for different options. He noticed that the Boomer that slimed him earlier was still alive, and running behind the Tank. Joe bolted towards the Tank. His teammates looked stunned and didn't follow him.

"Are you crazy?" Chris yelled to him. Joe ignored him and focused only on the Boomer and the Tank. He did his best not to get to close to the Tank, and ran in a wide circle around him. The Tank ignored Joe's team and went straight after him.

"_Good. Just like I hoped_," Joe thought. He ran over to the Boomer that had thrown up on him earlier and grabbed it by its shirt. He shoved it over at the Tank and the Boomer slammed into it. While the two zombies stumbled, Joe took this opportunity to unleash his fiery wrath. The Boomer and the Tank lit up, and the Boomer exploded after a few seconds, covering the Tank in its slime. The zombies coming from the right side of the stadium started charging towards the Tank.

"Now's our chance! Run!" Joe commanded. The survivors all ran as fast as they could towards the right-hand exits, the zombies ran right past them and started attacking the Tank. With the zombies and Tank distracted, the four easily made it out of the stadium. They dashed across the street and ducked into a nearby alley to catch their breath; they watched more and more hordes of zombies run into the stadium. Ted finally caught up with the survivors; he wasn't in a hurry after all. Joe, Chris, and Kelly all stared at Fred with hateful glares.

"So, who wants to go say hello to CEDA?" Fred said. The three other survivors punched him.

The walk to CEDA's evac station was a rather short and easy one. After all, they never bothered turning the lights off at the stadium, so the zombies were still being gathered there for the most part. They arrived at the evac station, which consisted of little more than a large tent in a park, they found that it was completely abandoned, with several corpses scattered around.

"Well, we're fucked. Oh well," Fred said. Joe sighed and looked around, trying to think of another plan.

"Shut up Fred. Look around the station guys, maybe there are some clues as to where another might be," Joe said. The group broke off and started searching the evac station. Chris walked over to a table, where he saw an open briefcase with a bunch of documents inside. He started sifting through the documents and tried to see if there was anything of interest. He noticed a large manila folder labeled "classified." Naturally, Chris decided to open it up and check what's inside. Some blueprints for a strange device fell out; Chris couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. But it did look interesting, so he called his teammates over.

"Guys! Come look at this!"

"What is it?" Joe asked.

"Blueprints for some sort of device… I can't really figure it out, but it seems fishy to me that CEDA would have something like this just hanging around though." Chris replied.

"Let me see that." Joe said as he snatched the blueprints from Chris's hands. Joe's eyes widened. "Fred. It's Flathead. He's behind all of this," Joe said.

"What? No way. Flathead's dead," Fred replied.

"What do the blueprints say? Can you read them?" Kelly asked.

"Sure can. I'm a bit of an inventor myself," Joe said, "These are blueprints for a control center for a large group of nanomachines. The nanomachines spread by contact with someone's saliva..."

"Just like the infection…" Chris said.

"Right." Joe continued, "The nanomachines are supposed to keep the infected individuals under control of whoever is running the control station, but Flathead wouldn't be this barbaric. Something must have gone wrong."

"How do you know this 'Flathead' guy is involved?" Chris asked.

"He signed his name on the paper," Joe said.

"He always does," Fred added.

"But I thought you said he was dead?" Kelly said.

"We thought so too… but the paper is dated for 6/31/2010…" Joe said.

"Two weeks ago… that's when the first known infected was discovered!" Chris said.

"Could it be forgery?" Kelly asked.

"It's possible, but this looks legitimate. I've found so many of these that I've pretty much memorized his signature," Joe said.

"Well we've got to go destroy this control center, maybe it'll put a stop to this! Do we know where Flathead lives?" Chris asked.

"The moon," Joe and Fred said simultaneously.

"WHAT?" Chris yelled. "What makes you think that?"

"His base is ALWAYS on the moon," Joe said.

"He's not a very creative mad scientist," Fred added. "Joe, you think we can steal a spaceship from NASA?"

"They're probably all infected anyways. It's better than taking the stairs again." Joe said.

"NASA? The moon? Stairs? What are you talking about?" Chris asked. He turned around and looked at Kelly.

"Sounds good to me." Kelly said.

"Do you seriously think that stealing a spaceship and going to NASA is a logical idea, or are you just being Kelly?" Chris asked.

"Chris," Kelly began, "Let me give you a little recap of my day. I got a rude wake up call from the Incredible Hulk, I then proceeded to torch him with a flamethrower, get knocked 100 feet into a brick wall, pry a katana from a man's cold dead hands, use it to put down a washed up rap star, cut a woman in half down her cerebral column, and then do battle with hordes of the undead on the stage of a stadium. Logic is dead."

Chris sighed. She did have a point. After all that, taking a surprise trip to the moon was hardly a stretch.

"So it's settled, we're heading to NASA," Joe said.

"NASA is in Texas! We're in L.A. and we don't even have a car!" Chris said

"I can help you with that," The survivors looked around, confused as to whom this mysterious new voice belonged to. They looked towards the entrance of the tent to see a greasy looking man with sunglasses and a handlebar mustache walking towards them.

"No," Joe said. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How did you find me here?"

"I am wherever you go Joe Text," The man said.

"Who are you?" Chris asked.

"The name's Jerome Frenenando kid, I'm a merchant of sorts," Jerome replied.

"Look Jerome, it's the zombie apocalypse. You can be up front about being a drug dealer; I think the police have bigger things to worry about," Kelly said.

"I'm not a drug dealer lady; I'm offended that you'd think of me that way. My wares are much finer. I understand that you folks need a vehicle, well, lucky for you, that's exactly what I got," Jerome said.

"Don't listen to him, let's go guys," Joe said.

"This guy rip you off before Joe?" Chris asked.

"I fail to see how a jetpack is a rip-off," Jerome said.

"HE SOLD YOU A GODDAMN JETPACK? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU COMPLAINING FOR?" Kelly said.

"My thoughts exactly young lady. You folks interested in the car?" Jerome asked.

"Well we'd love to buy it, Jerome. But we don't really have any money." Chris said.

"Money? Who said anything about money? Having money during a zombie apocalypse is worthless. I want your weapons," Jerome said. Chris looked awkwardly at the rest of the group.

"May we have a moment alone Jerome? We should probably talk about this," Chris said.

"Certainly. I'll just be waiting outside," Jerome said as he walked out of the tent.

"What do you think guys, should we trust this guy?" Chris asked.

"Of course not! Look at that horrible, greasy mustache! I wouldn't trust him with an egg. Let's go guys," Joe said.

"What the hell are you complaining about? He sold you a jetpack! Let's go for it Chris! Come on Joe, we need to get to NASA don't we?"

"I'd watch what you say about my mustache, and it IS a long walk to Texas!" Jerome called out.

"Stop eavesdropping on us! See? Are we really gonna trust him with all of our weapons?" Joe asked.

"You have any input on the situation Fred?" Chris asked.

"Decisions are hard," Fred said.

"Insightful," Chris replied. It was a tough call, they needed a vehicle to get to NASA, and Chris wasn't sure if they'd get an opportunity like this again. But he wasn't sure if he could trust Jerome.

"What if he shoots us with our own weapons?" Joe asked.

"That's a chance we'll have to take," Chris said, "Hey Jerome! Come in here!"

"You guys decided?" Jerome said. Chris held out his pistol and motioned for the other three to do the same. Jerome smiled.

"Excellent." He said as he went down the row, picking up Chris's pistol, Fred's SMG, and Joe's old shotgun.

"What's with the bugle?" Jerome asked.

"It's a signal for our team. It'd be no use to a greasy slime ball like you." Joe said. Jerome eyed him suspiciously before moving on to Kelly, who was standing with her hands behind her back, staring at Jerome with "puppy dog eyes".

"I'm just the girl, the damsel in distress all the time. I can't fire a gun, let alone kill a zombie. I let all of the men handle the weapons," Kelly said.

"Nice try, but I saw you with that katana. Hand it over," Jerome said. Kelly cursed under her breath as she gave Jerome the katana. Jerome walked over to Joe and gave him a set of keys. "All yours, car's across the street in parking space A-3."

Jerome bolted out of the tent, surprising Chris, Kelly, and Fred. But Joe was staring intently at the keys. They seemed so familiar. He tried to ignore it as he walked out the tent and across the street with his team.

"Let's see, parking space A-3…" Joe said aloud. They found the parking space, and at the space was a dark green car with glasses for windshields and a Charlie Chaplin mustache. Joe's face turned bright red in anger.

"That is the coolest car I have ever seen in my life," Kelly said, "We did good boys."

"You OK Joe?" Chris asked.

"That fucker just sold me my own car," Joe said.

"Hey Joe, that looks like your car," Fred said as he caught up with the rest of the group. Joe slapped his forehead in rage.

"I'm driving. You all owe me that much," Joe said.

"Joe, there's only four seats in this car, what about Ted?" Kelly asked. Joe reached a breaking point. He walked over to Ted and shoved his hand in Ted's mouth, grabbing Ted's extend-o tongue. He went to the hitch where you could attach a trailer and tied Ted's tongue around it.

"Get in." Joe commanded.

"Shotgun!" Fred called as he got in. Chris and Kelly got in the back while Joe started up the car, not saying a word, consumed in his own rage. He started driving off, Ted bouncing around behind them.


	6. Just Passing Through

Chris had a difficult time seeing the road, nobody had bothered to put streetlights in the desert, and it didn't help that the roads were bumpy and difficult to navigate. "Kelly, do you know where they are?" Chris asked.

"Well, we're in Nevada somewhere." Kelly said.

"Fantastic, that was helpful," Chris said.

"Hey! We're out in the middle of nowhere; we haven't seen a single landmark in ages. Don't blame me!" Kelly said. Chris sighed.

The survivors had set up a good system for the long drive. There were always two people awake in the front and two people asleep in the back, so they could keep moving and get some rest at the same time. Joe and Fred took the day shift, while Chris and Kelly handled nights. Chris noticed that Kelly started nodding off.

"Hey, stay awake!" Chris said as he nudged her.

"Argh, but I'm so tired! The desert is so boring…" Kelly complained.

"You just slept for twelve hours. You think that driving is a blast either?" Chris said. He took a look at the dashboard to make sure everything was OK. The gas meter was getting dangerously close to empty. "Awesome."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"We're just about out of gas in the middle of the desert. Fucking perfect," Chris said. Just as he said that he saw a building on the horizon. He grew hopeful and sped up.

"I say old bean! Let off of that pedal at once! You'll wear down my tires!" The Joemobile yelled.

"Fuck off Lord British," Chris retorted. The car grumbled as Chris continued speeding along. He found it extremely unsettling that the car could talk, but it didn't seem to bother anyone else, so he didn't say anything about it. As Chris approached the building he could see various pumps on the outside of the building. He looked at Kelly and smiled.

"Looks like we got lucky for once," Kelly said. Chris was about to mention the little incident at the stadium, and how optimism only led to disappointment and a nightmare scenario where they were driving to NASA to hijack a ship to the moon, but he decided against it. Nobody liked a party pooper after all.

Chris parked by one of the pumps and got out. He saw bright red graffiti on the walls of the actual station, the graffiti said that people had already taken all of the gas, and there was no use trying to use the pumps. Chris tried using the pumps anyways, only to find that none of them worked.

"Super," He said to Kelly, "Now what are we gonna do?"

"We can check inside for cans, or maybe there's a map in there that can tell us where we are." Kelly said.

"Worth a shot, I guess." Chris replied. Kelly started to walk inside the station. "Don't go in yet," Chris said as we walked over to the Joemobile. He popped open the trunk and grabbed Joe's flamethrower in case there were zombies; they didn't have any other weapons.

Chris and Kelly walked into the gas station. The windows of the place were shattered, and all the snack items that usually line the shelves of a gas station were completely gone. Chris went behind the counter to look for more supplies; he ducked down to check if there was anything behind the counter when he heard a loud scream coming from Kelly. Chris looked up and saw a large tongue coming from the window wrapped around Kelly. Kelly was trying to her best to get the tongue off of her, but it was wrapped too tightly. Chris leaped over the counter and ran over to her. Chris grabbed the tongue around it and started pulling on it too, normally he'd shoot the tongue, but he was afraid he'd burn Kelly if he used the flamethrower. He got the tongue away from her throat for a brief moment.

"Kill the Smoker," Kelly said weakly, "Just hurry!" Chris let go of the tongue and sprinted towards the door, the Smoker was getting her from the back side of the gas station. As Chris ran through the door he heard growling. He looked up to see a Hunter on top of the gas station, it leaped through the air and landed right on top of Chris, pinning him to the ground.

"JOE! FRED! PLEASE WAKE UP! GET IT OFF!" Chris screamed as loud as he could. But they couldn't hear him. The Hunter started shredding through Chris's jacket as Chris struggled to try and get it off. He held up his hands to keep the thing from ripping into his face.

Suddenly Chris heard unfamiliar voices, followed by a loud blast. The hunter collapsed in a bloody mess on top of Chris. Chris immediately got up and started sprinting towards the spot where Kelly's attacker was.

"Yeah, you're welcome buddy!" He heard a voice yell. Chris ignored it and kept sprinting to the Smoker. He saw the Smoker still attacking Kelly, Chris bombarded it with a stream of flames as soon as Chris got close enough. The Smoker died and the tongue loosened its grip. Chris immediately grew uneasy; he couldn't hear Kelly's voice. He walked over to the window, looked inside, and panicked. Kelly was slumped on the ground, not moving. Chris immediately sprinted to the front of the station towards the door.

As Chris turned the corner of the gas station, he finally saw who his saviors were. He saw four people gathered around the Joemobile. There was a portly, older looking black man, a young black woman, a greasy looking white guy in a suit, and another white guy wearing a hat. He could hear their conversation.

"Well this is… interesting," He heard the woman say.

"Y'all reckon we should follow 'em? Maybe he's got some gas we can borrow." The man in the hat said.

"No, let him go get pounced again. He's probably just some backwards redneck anyways," said suit.

"I'd watch what you say Nick," The portly man said.

"Have you ever seen The Hills Have Eyes, Coach?" Nick asked, "'Cause that's the situation we're in right now. He's probably a bigger danger than the zombies."

"I don't think he's from around here if this is his car," the woman said, "but he probably is a psychopath. Why do you think he's got a Smoker tied to his bumper? Some sort of trophy maybe?"

"I don't want this thing getting away and attacking us…" Nick said as he aimed his rifle at Ted.

"Don't shoot!" Chris yelled. The four strangers turned around.

"Well, look who came crawling back." Nick said.

"Shut the hell up Colonel Sanders!" Chris said, "Please, you have to come help me!" After Chris said that, he ran into the gas station over to Kelly's body. He crouched down and checked her. She was still breathing. Chris let out a sigh of relief.

"She alright?" Chris turned around and saw the four from outside at the door. Chris nodded to the man they called Coach.

"Yeah, she's just unconscious," Chris said.

"Great, come on guys; let's get the gas and leave." Nick said.

"There's no gas left, that's what we were checking for when we got attacked." Chris explained.

"What's your name boy?" Coach asked.

"Chris. My unconscious friend here is Kelly,"

"Well my friends call me Coach. This here's Rochelle, Ellis, and Nick."

They had woken up Joe and Fred; all eight survivors were standing around the gas station, wondering what to do about their situation. Kelly was still unconscious, so they put her up on the counter as a makeshift hospital bed.

"So let me get this straight," Joe said, "We're at a gas station with no gas, and both cars can't go anywhere else because they're both out of gas. Anyone got any ideas?"

Nobody had any; they all stood around different areas of the gas station. Chris looked over at Kelly, and saw Fred putting his hand on hers.

"Fred, what the hell are you doing?" Chris said. "If she wakes up and sees you doing that, she'll kick you in the balls. I guarantee it,"

"Ssssh," Fred replied, caressing her hand. Chris rolled his eyes and took a look around the room. He saw Ellis in the corner, blushing, while talking to Rochelle.

"Ellis sweetie, you haven't even talked to her yet," Rochelle said.

"Jus' look at her! Shit, she reminds me of Sleepin' Beauty or somethin'," Ellis replied. Chris chuckled to himself.

"_Kelly sure attracts some champions,_" Chris thought.

"So, you folks got any weapons?" Coach asked Joe.

"Just one," Chris said as he held up Joe's flamethrower.

"I fail to see how a megaphone is a weapon. I don't think you can kill a zombie by yelling at it," Nick said. Joe walked over to Chris and snatched the flamethrower out of his hands.

"It's not a megaphone, it's a flamethrower. Want to see it up close Colonel Sanders?" Joe said.

"Bite me, mullet man," Nick replied.

"Hey now y'all, let's not start fighting," Coach said, "What happened to all of your guns?"

"We traded them for the car." Joe said.

"Perfect, us too," Nick said, "We got ours from a slime ball with a greasy handlebar mustache. Turns out it was the one we were using before," Joe and Chris stared at each other in disbelief.

"Hey now, mustache man got Jimmy Gibbs Jr. back to us. We should be thankful." Ellis said.

"Where did you guys say you came from?" Chris asked.

"N'Orleans." Coach replied. Chris and Joe stared at each other again, with their jaws dropped in unison. Kelly started grumbling something unintelligible.

"Hey Ellis, I think your Sleeping Beauty is waking up," Nick said. Kelly opened her eyes, but didn't sit up.

"Oh god! OK Ellis… don't screw this up…" Ellis said to himself. Chris couldn't help but smile, he was like a 7th grader getting ready to ask her to a school dance.

"Am I dead?" Kelly said quietly. "What's on my leg?" She sat up, still clearly not entirely there. She blinked a couple times and looked at her leg. A hand was there and she followed it up the owner's arm to the owner of said hand which, of course, was Fred. Kelly let out an ear shattering scream before she started crying. "I'm in hell! What did I do to deserve this?" She sobbed.

"Settle down girl, you ain't dead," Coach said.

"I'm… not dead? Then that means…" She looked over at Fred and gave him an angry glare as her face turned bright red with rage, "You have ten seconds. Start running."

"What are you gonna do? Slap me? Kick me in the balls? I'm not afraid of you," Fred said.

"One… two…" Kelly began.

"_Oh god, this is gonna be fantastic,_" Chris thought.

"Three… four…" Kelly continued.

"I'm sooooo scared!" Fred said.

"Five… six…" Kelly said as she pulled her hood up.

"Oh shit guys, she pulled her hood up! Shit's about to go down!" Fred said. Kelly stood up and the countertop and then went to a crouching position.

"Ten!" She snarled as she leaped from the countertop onto Fred. She pinned him to the ground Hunter style and started beating the shit out him.

"Ow! Fuck! God damn it! Someone get her off me!" Fred yelled. Nobody helped him; they were either enjoying the spectacle or sympathizing with Kelly. After five minutes of this, Kelly finally got off of him. Fred's face was bruised and bloody, and there was a puddle of blood surrounding his head.

"I'm gonna go wash this blood off of my hands. I'll be right back," Kelly said as she started walking towards the bathrooms. The other six survivors started laughing.

"I'm never gonna let you live this down," Joe told Fred. Fred didn't get up or say anything, for he saw two Snickers bars sitting on the floor, underneath a shelf. It had been too long since Fred had a Snickers. He didn't focus on the pain or the humiliation. He only focused on the delicious candy. He reached under the shelf and grabbed the chocolate bars. He was about to unwrap one and eat it, but then stopped.

"I'm gonna need these later, we might be at this station a while," Fred thought to himself as he put the Snicker bars into his supply pack. After he put them away he stood back up. Kelly was back too.

"So, anyone want to fill me in on what's going on and who you people are?" Kelly said.

"I'm Coach," Coach began, "and these folks are Nick, Ellis, and Rochelle." Coach extended his hand and Kelly shook it, "Your friends already told us your name, Kelly."

"So what are we still doing at the gas station?" Kelly asked.

"Waiting for you to wake up from your beauty sleep," Nick said. Kelly ignored him and looked at Joe for answers.

"There isn't any gas here. We're stranded." Joe said.

"Maybe there's a map? That's what Chris and I came in looking for," Kelly said.

"There's one right here!" Ellis exclaimed proudly as he pointed to a map of the United States on the wall. Kelly started laughing uncontrollably.

"Great, now we know what state we're in. Thanks Ellis," Nick said. "How would a map help us at all princess?"

"Like a local map, to show us where some other gas stations might be, Colonel Sanders," Kelly hissed.

"GOD DAMN IT! WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP CALLING ME THAT?" Nick yelled. Kelly ignored him again and walked behind the counter, she started opening up draws and start sifting through documents. She eventually pulled out a road map and flattened it out on the countertop.

"Like this one," Kelly said as all the survivors except Fred gathered around. They all analyzed the map for a minute.

"Nearest town is five miles," Coach said.

"I guess we're walking then. Come on guys!" Joe said as he picked up the map. The survivors then walked out of the gas station and into the desert.


	7. Revenge is Sweeter Than Snickers

"Say that reminds me, I ever tell ya 'bout the time me an' my buddy Keith…" Ellis began. Chris sighed; this was like the fiftieth inane story that Ellis had told all hour. He was a nice guy, but exasperating nonetheless. Kind of like someone else Chris knew.

"_Christ, he's like if Kelly were born in a trailer park,_" Chris thought. He let Ellis blabber on, every once in a while saying "Really?" or "Interesting!" but Chris wasn't really listening. He looked around; the survivors had all split off into their own little groups. Not too far away from each other, they could all see each other just fine, but everyone got a "buddy" of sorts and talked to them during the long walk. That is except for Fred and Nick, who made up the front and back of the line respectively. Behind Fred Joe was chatting with Coach, behind them Kelly was talking to Rochelle, and of course, Chris was talking to Ellis.

While Ellis blabbered on, Chris looked around for something interesting to look at. Unfortunately, this being the Nevada desert and all, Chris's options were cacti or Fred's bloody and bruised head. He started looking at the side of the road and noticed something shiny underneath the sand.

"Hold that thought Ellis." Chris said as he walked over to it. He began brushing off the sand, but he cut his hand on whatever this object was. He cursed and continued unearthing the object, more carefully this time. When he finally brushed most of the sand off, it revealed itself as another katana.

"_Why do so many people have katanas just lying around?_" Chris wondered, "_Whatever, Kelly will probably want this,_" Chris was about to call out to her when Ellis came up behind him.

"Aw man! Sweet ninja sword! Can I have it?" Ellis asked. Chris looked at Ellis, he then looked at the sword, and then he looked over at Kelly. While he was looking at Kelly, he caught a glimpse of Fred out of the corner of his eye. Fred was digging through his supply pack. Chris got an idea and grinned.

"Hey Ellis, you think rather highly of Kelly don't you?" Chris asked.

"Shit man, she's so pretty!" Ellis replied.

"Wanna know how to get her attention?" Chris said as he extended the sword to Ellis, "I've been friends with Kelly for a long time, and trust me; you'll be her favorite person in the world if you give her this." Ellis blushed and scratched the back of his neck.

"I'm kinda scared of talkin' to her," Ellis said.

"Trust me, she's really nice. Just give it a shot, it can't hurt," Chris said.

"I dunno, didn't ya see how she fucked up that Fred feller?" Ellis asked.

"Bad first impression, besides, Fred is probably a sex offender," Chris put the sword in Ellis's hands. He then gave him a little shove towards Kelly, "Go on, give it a shot" Chris said.

Ellis started awkwardly walking over to Kelly. Chris made sure that he wouldn't chicken out before turning his head to Fred. Fred had recovered the Snickers bars from his pack and was about to unwrap one. Chris walked back towards Ellis and Kelly; he wanted to make sure that Fred could see Kelly when he turned around.

"Hey Fred!" Chris called out, "I'm getting pretty hungry, can you give me one of your Snickers bars?" Chris asked. Fred turned around.

"Up yours Chris!" Fred called back. Chris turned and looked at Ellis, who was standing right behind Kelly.

"_Come on Ellis…_" Chris thought. Fred had turned around again and was about to eat his candy bar, "Seriously Fred, you stole all of my food earlier! You owe me!" Chris called again. Fred turned around again.

"Suck an egg!" Fred called back. Chris kept calling back and forth to Fred, trying to keep his attention, out of the corner of his eye he saw that Ellis had gotten Kelly's attention, as she and Rochelle were stopped and looking at Ellis.

"Ma'am… I'd like you to have this," Ellis said as he presented Kelly the katana. Kelly picked up the katana and stared at it in awe. Chris started making his way over to them to make sure Fred saw this.

"Come on Fred! You have two!" Chris called out.

"Chris! For the last time, fuck off!" Fred yelled back. He turned around and was about to eat his candy bar.

"Will you both shut the hell up?" Nick yelled. With this, Fred turned around again and looked at them.

"Hey Colonel Sanders, this doesn't…" Fred started, but stopped mid-sentence and looked at Kelly, who was hugging Ellis.

"You're my new favorite person." Kelly said to Ellis. Ellis blushed, and Chris looked at Fred whose face was also bright red, but it was a different kind of red. Fred glared at the two and clenched a fist. He turned around and pouted, trying not to look at anyone, when Coach walked up to him.

"Shit man, you got Snickers? Damn, it's been a loooong time since I've had one of these babies," Coach said as he snatched the unwrapped Snickers bar right out of Fred's hands. Fred stared at him in disbelief. He started sifting through his pack again while walking away from the other survivors in case someone else tried to get to his precious Snickers. He quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching him and he quickly unwrapped the second Snickers bar. He closed his eyes and quickly brought it to his face and bit down.

Fred expected a delicious combination of chocolate and peanuts, but instead got a mouthful of blowing sand. He was confused, he opened his eyes, the Snickers bar was out of his hand, he looked all around but it wasn't there. A horrible realization hit Fred and he looked up. His fears were confirmed; a vulture had swooped by and stolen his other Snickers bar. His eyes started streaming tears.

"MY SNICKERS!" Fred cried as he looked up. He dropped to his knees and started shaking his fist towards the sky. Chris laughed so hard that he cried.

The survivors had reached the town. But Fred didn't care; he only had one thought on his mind, revenge. Fred didn't trust these new guys at all. He felt like Kentucky Fried Suit would shoot him at any minute, and although he couldn't pinpoint why exactly, he HATED this Rochelle girl with a deep, burning passion. Oh and Ellis? How dare he. Kelly was HIS woman.

The person that irked Fred the most though? Coach. The bastard took his Snickers. You don't just deprive a man of his Snickers. These new "friends" were a major problem; Fred decided that they needed to go. Those suit wearin', womanizin', snicker-stealin', Rochellin' mother fuckers. But how would he get rid of them? He couldn't just shoot them because Joe, Chris, and Kelly clearly trusted them. He certainly didn't want to lose any more favor with Kelly, or get shot by Joe.

No, Fred would have to be sneaky about his revenge.

The eight survivors walked through the streets of the little town, keeping an eye out for zombies.

"OK guys, look for a gas station." Joe said. They walked past a Burger Tank fast food restaurant. Coach stopped in his tracks and looked at it.

"Man I'm hungry, when's the last time y'alls had a bite to eat?" Coach asked. Chris could see Fred shake uncontrollably with rage.

"Uh Coach? I don't think they're open." Ellis said.

"So? Maybe they still got some meat we can cook up." Coach suggested.

"Hey Joe's been making us some stuff from time to time, he can cook pretty well!" Kelly remarked.

"You know guys, we really should…" Joe began.

"Then it's settled. We're gonna take a break and Joe's gonna whip us up some burgers!" Coach exclaimed as he walked inside the Burger Tank. Joe slapped his forehead as Ellis, Rochelle, Kelly, Chris, and Fred followed suit. Nick stood next to Joe.

"I know how you feel man." Nick said as they followed the others inside. They looked around, but didn't see any of their fellow survivors.

"Out here! We're havin' ourselves a picnic!" Coach called out. The back door was open, and Joe could see that the survivors were sitting at two picnic tables.

"Well, hop to it Joe." Nick said as he walked out the door.

"God damn it, I'm surrounded by idiots." Joe muttered.

Fred sat with his head on the table. He had to come up with an idea. He couldn't stand looking at these THIEVES any longer.

"_I wish I had another Snickers…_" Fred thought. He looked across to the other table at Coach, that horrible, horrible man. "_Look at him, talking to his cronies, thinking he's INNOCENT!_" Fred thought. "_What a stupid, horrible, disgusting, thieving, fat… Wait a minute, fat! That's the answer_!" Fred stood up from the table and started walking into the Burger Tank.

"Hey Fred, where ya goin'?" Ellis asked.

"Bathroom, I'll be right back." Fred said as he walked inside. He looked to the right and saw Joe flipping burgers on the grill.

"Oh those burgers smell good! You truly are a master chef!" Fred said.

"Fuck you; I've been cooking you shit for like 6 years. I'd be a little more grateful." Joe replied. Fred walked over to the drinks and filled four cups up with Coca-Cola. He put them to the side and grabbed four empty cups and four lids. He then walked out the front door and looked around. He noticed a Spitter corpse on the ground over by a bush to his right.

"Perfect." Fred thought as he walked over to the corpse. He bent down next to it and started scooping up some of the acid that remained into the cup.

"Damn, I'm good," Fred thought as he filled one of the cups, "I'm so sneaky, I'm like Solid Snake or Altair or something." He finished filling the cup and he stood up. He grabbed a lid and put it on the cup. Fred heard a sizzling noise and looked down; the acid was burning through the cup and dripping on his pants in the crotch area.

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!" Fred thought as he dropped the cup on the ground and quickly removed his pants. Fred quickly hid his discarded pants in the bushes and ran inside to get another cup. He grabbed another cup from the condiment station and turned around to walk outside again until he noticed Joe staring at him. Fred smiled weakly and Joe shook his head in disgust. Fred walked outside again and started walking around. He noticed a large tent at the end of the street and he started running towards it. It was another abandoned CEDA evac station, just like Fred had hoped. He quickly ran inside and found more corpses on the ground, just like the last one. He searched the bodies of the CEDA employees for Boomer bile. He found four tubes of it. He quickly emptied the tubes into the cups and put the lids on before running back to the Burger Tank. Fred walked inside and grabbed the actual Cokes, marking on the lids which ones the real Cokes were. Joe stared at him again as he walked towards the back door.

"I have no brothers," Fred heard Joe mutter. Rochelle was the first person to see Fred as he walked out the door.

"Good lord! Where are your pants?" She cried. Fred pondered the question for a minute, he couldn't just say, "I was filling your drink with Spitter acid and some got on my pants." He had to come up with a new excuse.

"Man, it's hot out here in Nevada isn't it?" Fred looked over at Kelly, who had her eyes closed.

"I'm not opening my eyes until Fred puts his pants back on," Kelly said.

"Aw man!" Ellis said, "This reminds me of the time me an' my buddy Keith went to the rodeo! It was actually a gay rodeo, see, but we didn't know at the time and Keith…"

"Ellis, I dunno if you've noticed, but we're about to eat." Nick said.

"Well at least the man brought drinks," Coach said as he got up, "Give one here boy."

"Sure Coach!" Fred said as he handed Coach a drink. "Drink it and enjoy it you fat thief," Fred muttered under his breath. Coach put his straw in the cup and took a big drink.

"Mmh, nice and cold! I sure do love me some good ol' fashioned Cola!" Coach said. Fred was confused; he looked down at the cups in his hands and counted the ones with markings on it. His count came to three.

"God damn it." Fred thought. He had accidentally given Coach the real Cola.

"Chris, can you go get me some Coke? I'd get it myself, but I'm still scarred from Fred's nudity," Kelly said.

"I sure can," Chris replied as he got up. Chris walked over to Fred and took two unmarked Cokes from his hands.

"Wait!" Fred said. Chris turned around. "You want me to get you something other than Coke? I can pour that out and get you guys something else!" Fred said in a panicked fashion. He didn't dare tell them about the Boomer bile, he didn't want to get yelled at again, or worse, beaten up by Kelly. He could still salvage this.

"It's OK Fred, Coke's my favorite," Chris said as he started walking over to Kelly. Fred clenched his teeth, he thought about running away, but what good would that do? He'd just get pounced or something. Chris put the straws in the drinks and gave one to Kelly. Fred closed his eyes, he couldn't watch. Chris started to put his lips to the straw.

"Hey Chris," Kelly said, Chris took his lips away from the straw and looked at Kelly.

"What?" He asked.

"COKE ATTACK!" She yelled as she opened the lid and splashed the Boomer bile in his face.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Chris screamed as he stumbled around blindly. The other survivors started panicking, screaming things like "What the hell?" and "Chris! Stop moving!" In his blindness, Chris stumbled into the parking lot and the other survivors chased after him. From down the street a Charger came and slammed Chris right into a car. The car alarm went off as Kelly ran to the Charger and skewered it with her katana. Coach helped Chris up as Joe came running from inside.

"What the hell is going on out here?" Joe demanded. The other survivors said nothing; Fred simply pointed a quivering finger behind Joe. Joe looked behind him to see an oncoming horde of zombies. "OK guys, ready your guns!" Joe said as he checked his flamethrower's fuel.

"There are no guns!" Nick yelled. Joe read the fuel meter on the flamethrower, it was at "E". He then stared at the oncoming horde one more time in terror.


	8. Left 2 Die

"Get back in the Burger Tank! We can funnel them through the doors!" Joe yelled. Joe ran to the Burger Tank doors and held the door open for the survivors as they ran inside. Joe noticed something weird; the zombies weren't chasing them. They were running right past them. Joe looked in the direction the zombies were running and saw Chris wobbling around while Kelly hacked up any zombies that got close to them with her katana.

"Help us! I can't handle these all on my own!" Kelly yelled as she slashed as many zombies as she could. Joe picked up a chair from inside the Burger Tank.

"Everyone grab a chair and follow me!" Joe commanded. He ran out the door and everyone else followed suit. A zombie was about to bite Chris from behind him when Joe bashed it over the head with the chair.

"Why are they all going for Chris?" Joe yelled.

"Barf!" Kelly yelled back.

"I can't see… what's going on…?" Chris whimpered.

"There was a Boomer? Did you kill it?" Joe yelled again.

"It was Fred! He sabotaged our drinks!" Kelly yelled over the sound of the screaming horde. Joe wanted to hit Fred with his chair, but there were still plenty of zombies to take care of. The chair-wielding survivors all formed a circle around Kelly and Chris, bashing away the zombies the best they could, and any zombie that slipped past was served a katana to the face by Kelly.

"Guys, the bile's worn off! I can see again! They'll start attacking you at any moment!" Chris called out.

"Okay guys, when you get a chance, run back to the Burger Tank! We can try and funnel them inside!" Joe yelled.

"Not happenin' Joe, look at it!" Ellis called out as he pointed to the restaurant. Joe turned around to see that the building had erupted in flames. Joe gazed at it in sheer terror.

"What the hell! Joe, did you leave the stove on or something!" Rochelle asked.

"Well sorry for not thinking of standard safety protocol when hordes of flesh eating zombies are outside! I'll remember to turn everything off next time if it makes you feel any better!" Joe yelled.

"There won't be a next time! We're fucked!" Nick called out as he bashed a zombie with his chair.

"God damn it I know that!" Joe yelled back.

He didn't want to abandon his friends, but what else could Chris have done? He didn't have any sort of weapon. He was useless, complete trash. The chairs Joe had gotten were helping to keep the zombie at bay, but here's the thing about chairs, they're fucking chairs. You have to swing pretty hard to kill someone with a chair, and multiple times too. The only one who could do any actual zombie killing was Kelly, and she couldn't handle all of those zombies. They probably had the whole town on them. They'd be there all day at this rate, assuming of course they didn't all get eaten.

So Chris ran away, neither the survivors nor the zombies noticed Chris running off, everyone was too focused on the brawl out in the parking lot. Chris reached the picnic tables and started looking for a makeshift weapon. He frantically searched around, looking on the tables and underneath the tables. He wanted to run into the Burger Tank and get something, but it was completely consumed in flames, there was no way he was going inside. Chris saw that Fred's drinks were still on the table. He immediately grew furious.

"_We're all going to die because of that son of a bitch. Why the hell would he fill the cups with Boomer bile?_" Chris thought. Suddenly, an idea struck him. He started removing the lids from the cups and checked inside them. The first cup contained Coca-Cola, "_Come on, there's gotta be more…_" the next cup contained more Coke, as did the next one. Chris heard a growling noise from behind him. He quickly turned around, but nothing was there.

"Come on you motherfucker, you had to fill more than one!" Chris said as he opened up another cup. More Coke. The growling grew louder and louder. Chris turned around again, but he couldn't see where it was coming from.

"_GOD DAMN IT FRED I HATE YOU!_" Chris thought as he opened up the next cup. To Chris's joy, there was actually bile inside this one. Chris didn't waste a moment; he ran over to the flaming Burger Tank and opened the door, feeling the intense heat rush out. He took a deep breath.

"Please god, work…" Chris thought as he splashed the bile into the inferno. Chris turned around, he wanted to run to the parking lot and see if his plan had worked, but alas, fate couldn't allow that. Chris had found the source of the growling. He felt it land on top of him. He felt it rip off his shirt. He felt its claws ripping into his flesh. Chris screamed as loud as he could for his team, but they couldn't hear him. Chris's vision slowly started fading, the last thing he saw was the Hunter's dark, bloody eye sockets.

Joe looked around, confused. All of the zombies were running into the flaming building. He knew that zombies weren't the brightest creatures on the planet, but the survivors were standing right next to them, and yet they ignored them, instead choosing a fiery fate inside the Burger Tank. Joe looked around to see his teammate's faces as well; most of them were staring at the zombies in disbelief. All except for Kelly, who was looking around in concern.

"Where's Chris?" She asked.

"I don't know, I thought he was with you." Joe replied. Kelly started panicking.

"He was right behind me a minute ago!" Kelly said as she started running towards the picnic tables. "Chris? Where are you? Chris?" She called out. Kelly turned the corner and let out an ear shattering scream. She sprinted over to the Hunter and slashed it with the katana, killing it. She shoved the Hunter off of Chris and got a better look at him. The Hunter had ripped apart Chris's shirt and jacket, and he cut pretty deeply into his flesh. Chris was lying in a pool of blood with his eyes closed. Kelly started sobbing.

"Oh god! Please Chris, wake up!" She screamed desperately. The other survivors came running after her soon after, seeing her crouched over Chris crying. She put her hand on his chest; she felt it rise slowly up and down. He was still breathing. "He's still alive! We need to get him some first aid!"

Kelly lifted him up on her shoulders, Ellis walked over and took Chris's other arm.

"Let me help you with that." Ellis said.

"We need to find a safe room; it'll probably have some first aid kits." Joe said.

"CEDA had an evac station down the street! Maybe there's some first aid there! Follow me!" Fred exclaimed as he ran back to the parking lot. The other survivors moved with Kelly and Ellis, who were moving Chris's body as fast as they could. They saw Fred enter CEDA's tent, and after a few minutes of dragging Chris they finally caught up with him. Kelly and Ellis plopped Chris down on a table, while Coach approached him with some first aid.

"Found some! Let me patch him up!" Coach said as he got to work on Chris. Kelly pulled up a chair and watched Coach diligently work, while Joe addressed the rest of the survivors.

"So, anyone wanna fill me in on WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS ABOUT?" Joe yelled.

"Shit man! I dunno it all happened so darn fast!" Ellis exclaimed, "I mean Kelly just wanted to have a bit o' fun with Chris, she didn't mean nothing by it, don't blame her!"

"Nobody's blaming anybody Ellis. Now, what did Kelly do?" Joe asked.

"So Fred got us some drinks, right? I mean he had done come in and asked if anyone wanted one, so Chris done gone up and got one for Kelly an' him. But Kelly splashed her drink in Chris's face, but it turned out to be Boomer bile an'…"

"Hold on Ellis, who got you guys those drinks?" Joe asked.

"Fred," Ellis replied. Joe stormed over to Fred and decked him.

"Get up!" Joe commanded and Fred obliged. "What's this about Boomer bile? And for god's sake, put some pants on!"

"I… well… the thing is… personally…" Fred stammered. Joe decked him again, and kicked him on the ground this time.

"I've had enough of your bullshit Fred! You've done nothing but fuck up and nearly gotten us killed this whole time! Look at Chris, Fred! Look at him!" Joe yelled.

"Finished!" Coach said.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Kelly asked.

"Shit girl, I've seen worse. He'll be just fine," Coach replied. Kelly took a look at Chris's body, the majority of his torso was bandaged, and all of the bandages were extremely bloody.

"Please Coach, tell me the truth…" Kelly begged. Coach sighed.

"Honestly, I don't know. Boy's lost a lot of blood, I dunno if he's gonna make it," After Coach said this, Kelly walked over to the rest of the group just as Fred was getting up from Joe's punch. As soon as Fred regained his center of balance, Kelly decked him. She crouched down and put her katana to his throat.

"I SWEAR TO GOD FRED IF CHRIS DOESN'T MAKE IT I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" She screamed. She started crying again as she put the katana on the floor and sat back down in the chair by Chris.

"Coach, Rochelle, Ellis? Can I have a word with you guys outside?" The group of New Orleans survivors walked out of the tent for a brief moment. Joe gave them their privacy. He felt bad for them; his group had been nothing a but a nuisance to them, and all these people did was help Joe and the others when they were in need. He looked outside; Nick was talking to the survivors. After Nick finished, he was treated to a chorus of "absolutely not's!" Presumably, Nick had just voted to ditch them, the slime ball. Joe was grateful that the other survivors cared about them so much, despite the fact that they had only known them for a few hours. Suddenly he heard loud screams coming from outside and the southern survivors came running in.

"First zombies and now robots?" Rochelle cried. "Christ, when does it end?"

"I'd just like to let y'all know that I think this is the coolest thing ever!" Ellis said.

"God damn it Ellis, this shit's serious!" Coach scolded. Joe's heart sank a bit.

"Robots?" Joe asked.

"Go see for yourself! It's like really scary but totally awesome!" Ellis said. Joe walked outside the tent in fear. There he saw a spherical robot with a red visor and a row of spikes on his head, floating above the ground. Joe was simultaneously relieved and frightened, this particular robot wasn't a big deal, but the fact it was out here showed that whatever his plan was, Flathead had begun phase two of it.

"Guys, come out here for a second. I'd like to show you something." Joe said.

"Shit man, you take care of that robot already?" Ellis asked.

"No, just come out here." Joe replied. The survivors uneasily walked out and looked at the robot. "Allow me to introduce you to James Hammer." Joe walked up to James Hammer and waved, James started slowly floating towards Joe. "You see, the thing about James Hammer is that he sucks. He's seriously the worst robot in the world. Watch." Joe kicked James Hammer and the robot started falling apart. It fell to the ground and exploded in a pile of scrap behind Joe. "'K, demo over. Let's go back inside."

The survivors stared at Joe in disbelief, like he was a wizard or something. Joe then addressed them again.

"Look guys, I know what you were talking about out there. I'm not stupid. Nick, you're absolutely right. We need to get moving." Joe began, "If I told you guys why, you wouldn't believe me, but we're running out of time. We need to get those gas cans ASAP."

"What about Chris?" Ellis asked. Joe sighed and looked over at Kelly, who wasn't paying attention. She wasn't going to want to hear this…

"Leave him."

"WHAT?" Coach, Ellis, and Rochelle shouted in unison. Kelly didn't even bat an eye.

"For now, I mean. We'll come back for him later." Joe quickly added.

"Shit man, he needs medical attention. We can't just leave him on this here table!" Ellis said.

"It's a risk we're gonna have to take." Joe replied.

"What's so important? What's worth leaving this poor man to die?" Rochelle asked. Joe looked outside at the pile of rubbish where James Hammer once was and sighed.

"More than you know." He replied. "You guys are gonna have to trust me. We need to get those gas cans, and we've already done what we can do for Chris. What I propose is this, we go find a gas station, get the gas, then come back for him. Chris should either be fully recovered or dea…" Joe looked over at Kelly and quickly corrected himself, "mostly recovered."

"I like how this man thinks." Nick said.

"Of course you do Nick." Rochelle said.

"Well Joe, I'm trustin' you here. If you think it's the best choice, then I say let's go for it." Coach replied.

"OK guys, let's get moving." Joe said as Nick walked quickly out the door, while the other southern survivors were a little more uneasy about it. Joe looked at Fred and got him off the ground. "You're not getting out of this one. Get your ass moving." He snarled as he pushed Fred out the door. Joe looked over at Kelly, who was still sitting in the chair by Chris quietly.

"Kelly, we need to get going." Joe said.

"No." She said softly.

"Kelly, I know this is hard, but we really need you. You're the only armed person…"

"Then take the stupid sword… I made him a promise…" Kelly said quietly, not even turning around. Joe sighed, walked over to the katana, picked it up, and went after the other survivors.


	9. Some Old Friends

Joe walked out of a large department store, carrying a plastic bag filled with clothes.

"Did you seriously just go clothes shopping? What happened to running out of time?" Nick asked.

"We are running out of time, but do you really wanna look at Fred's ass any longer?" Joe replied as he threw some jeans to Fred, "For god's sake, please put them on." Fred obliged.

"What's with the other stuff in the bag?" Rochelle asked.

"It's for Chris. That Hunter completely shredded his clothes. He'll probably get pretty cold running around without a shirt on." Joe replied as he looked in the bag. He had gotten him a white t-shirt and a green jacket that were nearly identical to his old clothes. It was the least Joe could do for the poor guy. "Let's keep moving; there's gotta be a gas station around here somewhere." The survivors then continued their search for a gas station.

"Jesus," Joe thought, "How backwards were these people? Not even one gas station?"

Joe liked to make frequent role calls ever since the little incident with Chris. He turned around and started counting, everyone was present, but Ellis was standing completely still, staring at something a few yards back from the rest of the team. Joe started walking towards Ellis to see what the big deal was.

"Hey Ellis, you coming..." Joe began, but he stopped when he saw what Ellis was looking at. One of the houses on the street had been completely covered with a dark green slime.

"Shit man, you think a Boomer did this?" Ellis asked.

"Man, that'd be one huge ass Boomer." Coach said.

"Hey Fred, maybe it was your brother." Nick joked. Joe glared at Nick.

"I'M his brother!" Joe yelled as he walked over to the house. He stuck his fingers in the slime and smelled it. It smelled like puke, but it certainly didn't smell like Boomer puke.

"Sure! Let's get a good whiff of it! A+ plan, Joey." Nick remarked.

"Nick, never call me that again if you value your life." Joe snarled, "This isn't Boomer puke guys."

"Duuuuuuuude! Maybe it's some sorta Boomer-Tank hybrid!" Ellis yelled excitedly.

"So how would that work Ellis? He'd be fat and muscular?" Nick asked.

"It doesn't matter. We need to focus, let's keep looking for that gas station." Joe said. They kept walking down the street until they hit a fork in the road, one way going to the left and the other to the right. The way to the left looked completely devastated, with no houses or buildings, just large piles of rubble.

"Looks like we're goin' right." Coach said as he started walking that direction. The other survivors started following him.

"No." Joe said.

"You outta your mind?" Coach asked, "Whatever's down there man, I don't wanna have nothin' to do with it."

"We need to know what 'whatever's down there' is, just in case there's more of it. We need to learn how to deal with it." Joe said as he began walking down the street, the other survivors started following him slowly, looking around at the devastation. Joe drew Kelly's katana and held it out in case that thing was still around.

"You think a Tank did this?" Rochelle asked.

"I've never seen a Tank bring down a whole house, let alone 30. They're strong, but not that strong." Joe replied.

"Think this has anything to do with that vomit house?" Ellis asked.

"Guess we're about to find out." Joe replied. They slowly walked down the long street, looking around for zombies. They felt the ground start rumbling.

"TANK!" Fred yelled.

"No. If it was a Tank, we would've seen it by now. This is something bigger." Joe replied as they kept moving down the street. The rumbling got more and more intense, but they didn't see the source. There was no growling, so it couldn't be a Tank.

"Have any of you considered that maybe it's just an earthquake?" Nick asked.

"If it was just an earthquake, how come we didn't feel it earlier? And why did it only affect these houses? This isn't an earthquake." Joe replied.

The shaking reached a point where it was so violent that Joe actually considered Nick's suggestion, as Joe still couldn't pinpoint the source. Slowly, but surely, the rumbling went away.

"See? It was an earthquake." Nick said.

"You're being unusually positive Colonel. Don't get your hopes up." Joe replied. They came to a point it the street where there were houses still up. There was a house standing right next to a pile of rubble, there appeared to be no structural damage at all to it. "That was no earthquake. Something smashed those houses, I'm sure of it."

"Look man! Gas station!" Ellis said excitedly as he pointed to end of the street. Joe looked ahead; it certainly looked like a gas station. "We're gettin' out of here!"

"Let's not celebrate until we have the gas." Joe said uneasily. He had a bad feeling about that gas station. His feelings were confirmed when they got closer to the station and saw that there was already a small, black car there. They approached the car and saw the trunk was open and completely filled with gas cans.

"Well shit, it's our lucky day!" Ellis exclaimed.

"Cans don't move themselves Ellis. We're not alone." Joe said.

"So what? Let's just take them, and if the bastard refuses, we cut his fucking head off." Nick said as he pointed to the katana.

"Why don't we just talk to him?" Coach suggested, "Man's probably got a heart; why don't we just explain our situation to him? Fella could probably spare us a few of those cans."

"Let's find out who our mysterious gas guzzling friend is first." Joe said as he started walking over to the actual building part of the gas station. The door swung open and Joe was met by a familiar face. Joe immediately frowned.

"Why the long face Joe Text?" Jerome asked him.

"Well shit! If it ain't mustache man!" Ellis said excitedly. "Never did get to express my thanks for gettin' Jimmy Gibbs back for us sir."

"Don't sweat it kid, it's what I'm here for." Jerome replied.

"What Jerome? Selling us our own cars? You sure run a useful service." Joe said bitterly.

"I said I had a vehicle, and you bought it. I didn't do anything wrong." Jerome said.

"What happened's in the past Joe." Coach began, "Listen Jerome, you gotta help us; we're in a tight jam here. Could you give us some of your gas?"

"Interesting… what do you have to give me?" Jerome asked.

"A katana." Fred suggested.

"You know as well as I do that I already have one of those. Anything else?" Jerome asked.

"Listen you mohawked, greasy, mustached freak! We've got a dying man and a fucking lunatic back at base. Give us this gas before Joe fucking slices you!" Nick yelled. Jerome pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Joe.

"Calm down, Colonel Sanders. You're begging ME for gas, remember? I'd treat your business partners with a bit more respect. Besides, Joe, you're a reasonable guy, you'd never do anything like that would you?" Jerome lowered the pistol and put it back in his holster. "Tell you what; I'm going to cut you guys a deal. You can have as much gas as you want if you can get me some vegemite."

"Vegemite! Are you out of your mind! Where do you think we live, fucking Australia!" Joe yelled.

"You heard me correctly. I'll wait here for a while, there's a supermarket down the street, and I suggest you start there," Jerome said, "Hop to it."

Joe and the team walked away in the direction Jerome pointed, Joe held his head down in shame.

"Stupid, thieving, greasy, dumb, fetch-quest giving, plot device…" Joe grumbled.

"What kind of last name is Text?" Nick asked.

"An awesome one, for awesome people, like me." Fred said.

"Fred, shut up." Joe sighed.

Joe and the gang walked back to the gas station with jars of vegemite in their hands.

"Thank god they was havin' a vegemite sale before the infection hit right?" Ellis said gleefully.

"Yeah. Let's hope that Jerome goes away forever." Joe said as he approached the car. "'K asshole, we got your stupid vegemite. Now let us have the gas." Joe said.

"On second thought," Jerome began, "I need you guys to go get me a garden gnome as well."

"WHAT!" Joe screamed.

"Hey, you want that gas or not?" Jerome said, "See you in a bit Joe old chum." Jerome said as he sent the survivors away.

Joe added the piggy bank to the massive pile of shit they collected, which included a pocket watch, graph paper, onions, the first issue of Nintendo Power, a life sized cut-out of Tom Cruise, three chalupas, the complete set of Twilight McDonalds toys, a blue ball from the local Chuck E. Cheese, hockey masks, roller skates, a hockey puck, two hockey sticks, a dozen eggs, feathers from a white turkey, exactly 43 bricks ("No more! No less!" Jerome demanded specifically), a copy of Legendary for the Xbox 360 and PS3, a robe, a monocle, a top hat, a duck bill, a duck, Fred's old pants, a copy of Indian in the Cupboard for VHS, a leg lamp, a leg, the skull of a Tank, 5 tricycles, every season of South Park, a blowup doll, the legendary Sonichu medallion, a Witch's nipple, some used condoms, butterscotch pudding, another copy of Indian in the Cupboard for VHS, pork rinds, 12 doubloons, a laminated copy of Mein Kampf, a stuffed mountain lion, yet another copy of Indian in the Cupboard for VHS, a custom built PC running Linux, Pokeballs, Hey You Pikachu for the Nintendo 64, a subscription to Women's Health magazine, a brown toupee, a bucket of movie popcorn, the lost letters of Abraham Lincoln that reveal the location of the Ark of the Covenant, a copy of the hit game Birdlets 2: Swans of Eternity, a copy of the OTHER hit game Grillin' Dad, velociraptor pajamas ("Don't give me any T-Rexes or any gay shit like that, it MUST be raptors, and they MUST have the little feets on them!"), the answers to the 1998 Advanced Placement European History exam, a copy of Indian in the Cupboard on DVD, Foo Quizzy Q's first hit album _Fine Bitches_, a stained glass window of Jesus Christ, the Holy Grail, tissues, the Maltese Falcon, a copy of Indian in the Cupboard on Blu-Ray, a PS3 to play said Indian in the Cupboard on Blu-Ray, the corpse of Harriet Tubman, the shovels used to dig up Harriet Tubman, Harriet Tubman's tomb stone, Indian in the Cupboard on Laserdisk, a garden gnome, and last, but certainly not least, multiple jars of vegemite.

"Gas is all yours. Pleasure doing business with you all." Jerome said as he sulked away.

"Burn in hell mustache." Joe muttered as he filled up his flamethrower with gas. After that can was empty, he took 5 more from Jerome's car and handed it to each survivor. Joe picked up one in each hand and they all started walking back towards the CEDA tent.

"Aw man, that lil' scavenger hunt right there reminds me of the time me and my buddy Keith…"

"ELLIS! NOT NOW!" The survivors yelled in unison.

"OK." Ellis replied.

"What do you think that asshole's doing with all that crap?" Nick asked.

"I don't care; I hope he enjoys his 15 damn copies of Indian in the Cupboard," Joe said, "Of all the movies in the entire world why…" Joe stopped, the shaking had returned, and it made Joe uneasy. "Forget Jerome, let's get going faster. I'm worried about Chris and Kelly."

The survivors finally came to the street where the CEDA station was, all the houses on the street were smashed. In addition to that, the ground was covered in the puke they had seen on that one house earlier, and there were huge clumps of black hair on the ground. When they got back to the CEDA station, the tent was still standing, but it too was covered in the goop. There was no sign of Chris or Kelly.

"Shit! Whatever that monster is, it must've gotten 'em! It must've eaten 'em!" Ellis panicked.

"Calm down Ellis, I think Kelly's a bit more resourceful than that. Plus, think of this, Chris isn't here either. So that either means that Kelly is insanely muscular and carried him out of here, or he's OK." Joe replied.

"Or they're both dead." Nick added dryly.

"Well we gotta go find them! We can't leave them out here by themselves!" Rochelle said.

"No." Joe said.

"Joe! How could you?" Rochelle yelled.

"We're not finding them," Joe said, "I'm finding them."

"By yourself? We can't let you do that! We gotta stick as a team!" Coach said.

"We've caused you all enough trouble as it is… you guys need to get out of here…" Joe began, "Here's what we're gonna do, I think I know what our mystery monster is now…"

"What is it?" Ellis interjected.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I've taken it down before, and I can do it again. You guys get back to your car and get the hell away from this place. Fred, you go with them and gas up the Joemobile. I'll take care of the monster and find Kelly and Chris, meet me out here when you've got it gassed up and wait for me." Joe finished.

"So I guess this means that this is goodbye." Coach said. Joe smiled.

"Whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow. However, that parting need not last forever... Whether a parting be forever or merely for a short time... That is up to you." Joe said. Coach at first looked confused, but then nodded.

"You heard the man! Let's get our asses back to Jimmy Gibbs Jr.!" Coach said. He and Nick took the cans out of Joe's hands, and the survivors started following Coach, Joe turned around, readied his flamethrower, noticed a trail of slime and began to follow it.

"Joe?" Joe turned around and saw Ellis standing there. "Do ya think you could… maybe…?" Joe smiled again.

"I'll tell her you say goodbye, Ellis." Ellis smiled back.

"Thank you." Ellis ran back to the other survivors and Joe started following the trail of slime. The slime trail led him to the Town Square, where he could feel the presence of the "monster".

"I know you're here!" Joe called out, "Come out and face me!"

"Hello good friend." A voice boomed. Joe recognized the voice. "You never met me that Tuesday."

"Had a bit of a conflict. I hope you understand."

"Certainly." The voice replied.

"I see you brought your friend with you." Joe said.

"Of course." A different voice replied.

"So you two seriously followed me all the way out here into the desert?" Joe asked.

"Joe, Joe, my dear boy, have you learned nothing?" The second voice replied. "Jimmy Neutron… is ALWAYS serious."


	10. Stairway to Heaven

A building in front of Joe fell apart, when the dust cleared, Joe saw Chilla Gorilla, a enormous Gorilla that wore a bandana, and Jimmy Neutron, boy genius, floating in mid-air.

"You two really wanna go through this again? I slaughtered you both last time we ran into each other." Joe said.

"Ah, but we were separated last time. Taking us both on won't be so easy." Jimmy replied. The manpuppet opened his mouth and let out a stream of puke, it seemed to home in on Joe, but Joe slid under it and dodged it.

"That's all you have? Puke? That's all you had last time." Joe said.

"I didn't have assistance last time. Get him Chilla!" The manpuppet commanded. Chilla Gorilla charged at Joe in a rage, wildly swinging his arms and knocking down houses. Joe tried to run around him, but Chilla was too fast, he caught up with Joe and punched him, sending him flying through the air. Joe hit a telephone pole so hard that it cracked.

"Christ… how did I do this before?" Joe thought. Joe suddenly realized that last time he had faced Chilla Gorilla, he had his jetpack. Joe had left that at his house. While Joe was getting up, he was blasted by a stream of puke; it blinded him as if a Boomer had thrown up on him. Luckily, zombies didn't come running, but it did slightly burn. When he wiped the puke off of his eyes, he saw Chilla Gorilla raising his arms, ready to pound Joe into the ground. Suddenly, Chilla stopped, lowered his arms, and flipped onto his head. "_Poor bastard must've forgotten what he was doing,_" Joe thought as he ran towards him. He was about to torch him with his flamethrower when he saw Jimmy swoop towards him out of the corner of his eye. He aimed the flamethrower towards Jimmy and lit him up. Neutron responded by firing more puke at Joe. Joe did a backflip and dodged the incoming puke. Joe looked at Chilla Gorilla and saw that his eyes were glowing red, after a second Chilla got back up on his feet.

"_Shit, he remembers now. I'll have to take care of Neutron first if I hope to ever even get near Chilla_," Joe thought. Chilla charged at him again, and Joe ran underneath his legs, hoping to confuse him. Chilla looked around.

"I'm gonna getcha! Where'd you go?" Chilla asked. Joe saw he was completely confused, he hoped Chilla would flip back on his head again, and indeed, it did look like Chilla was about to flip again when Joe heard Neutron scream, "He's behind you, you fool!" Chilla turned around and started charging for Joe.

"God damn manpuppet." Joe thought as he ran away from Chilla. Chilla stopped and flipped on his head again, Joe wasted no time; he ran over to Chilla and started burning his head. Chilla Gorilla growled and got back up. The bandana on Chilla's head had burned away to reveal a large, disgusting looking boil. The manpuppet came and swooped down again, Joe tried torching him, but he missed.

"I really wish I still had that jetpack…" Joe thought, "Maybe I'm doing this wrong. There's gotta be another way to bring these tools down." Joe searched his person for a Molotov or pipe bomb or Boomer bile or something. He then realized that he still had Kelly's katana. He looked at the large boil on Chilla's head and got an idea. Chilla started running towards Joe again, Joe didn't move, instead defiantly standing in Chilla's way.

"Chilla! Look! There's Joe Text!" Joe yelled as he pointed behind him. Chilla turned around and stared off in the distance.

"I don't seem him Joe." Chilla replied, still staring off.

"Oh he's there! Keep looking!" Joe called back. Joe then drew the katana and leaped onto Chilla Gorilla's back, using his fur as a makeshift ladder to make his way up to the top of his head. Jimmy Neutron puked on Joe and Chilla, it was painful, but Joe had to hold on.

"AIIIIEEEE! What'd you do that for!" Chilla Gorilla screamed.

"Joe is on your head! Knock him off!" The manpuppet yelled.

"But Joe told me that Joe went that way!" Chilla argued.

"You retard! Must I take care of everything?" The manpuppet asked. Jimmy Neutron then used his magical floating powers to charge towards Joe. As he was about to ram into Joe and knock him off of Chilla, Joe leaped into the air over the manpuppet's head, used Kelly's katana to slice off the foul manpuppet's legs, and Jimmy Neutron went crashing to the ground. While Joe was still in the air, he pointed the katana downwards as he fell, driving the blade in Chilla's boil. The boil popped and blasted Joe with pus, knocking him off Chilla.

"My beautiful boil!" Chilla screamed as he collapsed on the ground. Joe got up and walked over to the manpuppet of destiny, who was still alive, coughing on the ground. Joe put his flamethrower to his head.

"Where are they?" Joe demanded.

"I don't know what you're talking about…" The manpuppet pleaded.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about Neutron! Where did they go?" Joe barked.

"I don't know… I thought you sent them back to the Joemobile…" Neutron said as he coughed. Joe decided that Jimmy wasn't lying; he didn't know about Chris and Kelly.

"What's Flathead up to? What's with the nanomachines?" Joe asked. Then Jimmy Neutron, the manpuppet of destiny, started cackling like a hyena.

"Boss has a nasty surprise for you, Joe Text. Far worse than you could ever imagine… those nanomachines are affecting your life more than zombies ever could…"

"You mean the nanomachines aren't causing the infection?" Joe asked.

"Of course not. Boss isn't out to destroy the world. All he wants is you." Jimmy Neutron said.

"Yeah! He's got a real great surprise!" Chilla Gorilla chimed in, "You know those people that…"

"Chilla! No! Don't tell him! Joe needs to figure it out for himself…" Neutron said. He began coughing violently before dying. Joe started walking away; he still needed to find Chris and Kelly.

"Joe!" Chilla called out. Joe turned around. "You free Thursday?"

"Sorry Chilla, I'm not sure what I'm doing then. We can make plans when I return." Joe replied.

"Sounds good! See you then!" Chilla called back, still collapsed on the ground. Joe started walking back to CEDA tent, looking for a sign of Chris or Kelly. Perhaps there would be a clue as to where they were. While walking back from the town square, thoughts raced through Joe's mind. The nanomachines weren't causing the infection, but they were greatly affecting Joe's life right now. What could that mean? And what could the nanomachines possibly do? Chilla's comment concerned Joe as well. "Those people that…" that what? Have been helping Joe? That have been infected? Who was he talking about?

Joe reached the CEDA tent and saw, to his surprise, a car. But it was not the Joemobile, and it wasn't Fred, it was a blue car with white stripes on it. It looked a lot like a racecar. Joe walked up to the window to see Ellis sitting there.

"Well howdy Joe!" Ellis said.

"Ellis? What are you doing here? I thought I told you guys to get out of here." Joe said.

"I came to getcha! We all saw how Fred gone an' fucked everythin' up before, so Coach told me to take Jimmy Gibbs and come get you!" Ellis replied. "Get in!"

Joe walked around to the other side of the car, and was greeted by two familiar faces sitting next to Ellis.

"Look who we done found at the gas station!" Ellis exclaimed. Joe was simultaneously relieved and pissed. He squished himself in the car and Ellis started driving.

"How you feeling?" Joe asked Chris.

"Super." Chris replied. Joe handed him the clothes he got him at the department store.

"These are for you; you can put them on once we get out. I'd rather not have your armpits up in my face." Joe joked. He then glared at Kelly.

"What?" Kelly said.

"I hope you realize how much time and effort you just made me waste." Joe said.

"Hey Joe, bite me. Chris was awake, there was a huge ass gorilla and Jimmy Motherfuckin' Neutron outside, we had no clue where you guys were, and we didn't feel like getting smashed to a pulp by King Kong. What would you have done in that situation?" Kelly said.

Joe sighed, at least they were OK.

"Hey Joe," Kelly asked, "Do you still have my katana?"

Joe stood at the front of his group and looked at their fellow survivors, who were all back at the gas station they met at.

"So I guess this is goodbye for real this time." Coach said.

"Remember what I said earlier Coach." Joe replied.

"I've been meaning to ask you guys, but why do you have a Smoker tied to your bumper?" Nick asked. Joe laughed, he had completely forgotten about Ted.

"You guys went through some crazy shit with us, so I think you deserve to know. It's my brother Ted. He was cripplingly retarded even before he was infected. He doesn't attack us, so we just kind of drag him along. We don't have enough room in the car for him." Joe said.

"We didn't untie him because we figured he'd bother you guys." Chris added.

"Oh he couldn't have bothered us any more than you guys did on your own." Nick said.

"Get yo ass in the car Nick!" Coach scolded. Nick jumped into Jimmy Gibbs Jr. and Coach turned to Joe's group again. "So you folks never told us where y'alls headed."

"You first." Joe said.

"Vegas baby!" Coach said excitedly, "There's been rumors flyin' around that Vegas held out."

"We'll, I don't think you guys would even believe us if we…" Joe began.

"WE'RE GOING TO THE MOON!" Kelly shouted excitedly. Joe slapped his forehead.

"Oh… my… god… that is the coolest thing I've ever heard! Take me with you!" Ellis pleaded. Kelly turned to Coach.

"We'll give you Fred for Ellis." Kelly offered.

"ALRIGHT MAN! I'M GOING TO THE MOON!" Ellis yelled.

"WOOP WOOP!" Kelly hollered as she high fived Ellis. Joe buried his face in his hands.

"Settle down son, you need to come with us. I don't think we want Fred after all he's put us through." Coach chuckled. "We'll see y'all later." The survivors exchanged their goodbyes as they hopped into their vehicles. Joe and Fred got in the front seat while Chris and Kelly got in the back. They started driving down the road once again. For a good, long while there were no sounds coming from any of the survivors. Kelly was staring out the window.

"Someone's being uncharacteristically quiet." Chris remarked. Kelly sighed.

"You know… that Ellis guy was pretty cute…" Kelly said, still staring out the window. Joe and Chris looked at Fred for a brief moment. His face was red with rage. He rolled down the window and shook his fist to the sky.

"EEEEEENNNNNNGGGHH! I'LL STRANGLE THAT ELLIS!" Fred screamed.

Joe untied Ted as he looked at NASA headquarters.

"Well guys, looks like we're here. Let's get inside and steal a rocket." Joe said. Joe, Fred, Kelly, and Ted all started walking towards the building while Chris stood back.

"You coming Chris? We don't want you getting pounced again." Kelly joked.

"I think we have a problem guys." Chris said.

"What might that be?" Joe asked.

"Let's pretend that we managed to find a rocket that still worked, one that's completely ready for launch and everything." Chris said

"That's what we're hoping for." Fred said.

"I'm aware of that numbnuts. Have any of you flown a rocket before? Because I sure haven't." Chris said.

"So what?" Kelly asked.

"So we get five feet off the ground and explode, that's what." Chris said.

"Stop being such a Negative Nancy, Chris." Kelly said.

"I'm not being a "Negative Nancy"! I'm being realistic!" Chris shouted.

"I see his point. Unless one of us can properly fly a rocket, then we're not going anywhere." Joe said.

"Stairs?" Fred asked. Joe nodded as they started walking away from their car. Kelly and Ted followed them, while Chris stared at them in confusion. He then started running to catch up to them.

"Pardon me, but what's this about stairs? I heard you guys mention this back in L.A., and I still have no idea what you're talking about." Chris said.

"It's a staircase that leads to the moon. Don't worry, Joe and I have used it plenty of times." Fred said.

"You're hilarious Fred. Seriously Joe, what are these stairs and what do they do?" Chris asked.

"Fred's not kidding." Joe said.

"OK. I've seen some pretty weird shit while I've been with you guys. Gorillas as big as houses, friendly zombies, a talking car, Jimmy Fucking Neutron… but you don't seriously expect me to believe…" Chris stopped talking as soon as he saw the giant staircase that led straight into the sky. Joe, Fred, Ted, and Kelly started walking up it nonchalantly, while Chris stayed at the bottom for a few seconds slapping himself in the face.

"Nope. I'm awake." Chris sighed as he started following his friends up the stairway to heaven.


	11. Final Fortress

After a long, boring walk up the enormous staircase, Chris found himself standing on the surface of the moon, staring off into the desolate moonscape.

"Well guys, we're here. Let's find Flathead's fortress." Joe said as he started walking out into the distance. The rest of his team followed him.

"OK, so what do we do now? The moon's a pretty big place. It'll take us forever to find Flathead at this rate!" Chris said.

"We're on the moon. Your argument is invalid." Kelly replied. Chris slapped his forehead.

"Do you even know if this Flathead guy is here Joe?" Chris said.

"He's always here." Joe replied.

"So what? Do we even know what his plan is? Can we even stop the infection by destroying that control center?" Chris asked.

"I misinterpreted the blueprints. The nanomachines aren't causing the infection. Stopping whatever Flathead is up to won't make everything normal again." Joe said.

"WHAT?" Chris yelled, "THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE?"

"Stopping whatever else Flathead is up to." Joe replied.

"We don't even know what that is!" Chris yelled.

"That's why he's so dangerous! I need to know what he's doing! We're dealing with a complete psychopath!" Joe began, "A man who made a giant cannon powered by Wheeties to destroy the world! A man who created a robotic version of a math student he had long ago, who flattened his head in a tragic accident, with the sole purpose of murdering that man! A man that was crushed by a 500 pound block of concrete, yet somehow is still alive! Look Chris, I suggest you take whatever logic you had before the infection and throw it right out the goddamn window, because nothing will make sense to you if you don't! Logic is dead! Done! Deceased! Passed on! If you want to hold on to your precious logic, then go home. Go back to your home in Miami and spend the rest of your life alone, fighting off hordes of slavering mutants that will stop at nothing until you're dead! But if you want to survive and actually do something with your existence, then stay here with us and stop your bitching!"

"Besides," Kelly added, "We're on the moon. Your argument is invalid." Chris didn't say anything. How could one respond to that? He simply nodded his head as they kept walking into the barren moonscape.

"Seriously though, if this mission is apparently so important, then we're going way too slow." Chris said. Joe rubbed his chin and thought for a minute.

"There were some vehicles around here last time that got Fred and me to Flathead's fortress faster. Let's keep an eye out for them." Joe said. The team continued walking into the distance until they saw two small dots on the horizon. "I think we found our rides." Joe remarked. They got closer to the dots and found that they were two giant, red sneakers. "Yup. These are definitely them."

Chris's jaw dropped. He wanted to say something, but knew he'd get yelled at again if he did, so he kept his mouth shut. Chris looked over and watched Kelly climbed into one of the shoes.

"This. Is. The. Best. Day. Of. My. Life." Kelly said. Suddenly Kelly felt a massive weight get into the shoe with her.

"You're gonna need an experienced pilot to fly this thing." Fred said with a grin. Kelly frowned.

"You just crushed my happiness with your massive weight. You monster. My day is ruined." Kelly replied.

"Well Chris, I guess you're my co-pilot. Hop on skippy." Joe said as he climbed into the other shoe. Chris got in and looked behind him, he saw Ted standing there stupidly on the ground.

"What about Ted?" Chris asked. Joe turned around and looked at Ted.

"Hey Ted! Tongue!" Joe said. Ted shot out his tongue and Joe grabbed it. "Hold this," Joe said as he handed the tongue to Chris. Chris grabbed the tongue, it was the most disgusting thing he had ever held in his hands. Joe started up the shoe and started flying through the sky. Fred did the same, Ted was being dragged behind. Again.

"So Kelly, impressed by my flying?" Fred asked.

"You're squishing me with your fat, and you smell like ass. Here's a protip Fred, using fifty cans of Axe is NOT a substitute for bathing!" Kelly replied. The survivors saw a large castle off in the distance and sped up, stopping at the large front gate. They landed the shoes and got out. "When we make it back to Earth, Fred showers first." Kelly said.

"Keep dreaming Kelly. Fred hasn't showered since he moved in with me." Joe said.

"And how long ago was that?" Kelly asked uneasily.

"Six years!" Fred proclaimed proudly. Kelly stared at Fred in pure terror.

"That's foul." Chris said.

"We can discuss hygiene later children. We have a lunatic to stop." Joe said. The survivors plus Ted walked inside the huge fortress. Joe looked back and did one of his frequent team role calls. Kelly was missing. "Where did Kelly…?"

"I'm here." Kelly said as she walked in the room with the others.

"Where were you?" Joe asked.

"Oh, I was just outside throwing up. Don't worry, I'm OK now." Kelly replied. The team kept walking until they saw an enormous, floating thumbtack.

"I am the gatekeeper of Flathead's fortress. My name is Captain Tac-A-Moe." The tack said.

"Let me guess, we have to fight you to proceed?" Kelly asked.

"Nope. You want to explain how this works Joe? Because I'm getting tired of it." Tac-A-Moe said.

"Sure. What happens here is that we race Tac-A-Moe to a huge checkered flag. We have to collect 100 yellow pellets as well. If we lose then… actually, that's a good question. What happens when we lose Tac-A-Moe?" Joe asked.

"I've forgotten at this point. I don't think anyone's ever lost." Tac-A-Moe replied.

"I've got a better idea," Kelly said, "How about instead of wasting out time racing you we just katana you in the face and move on?"

"That won't work. I'm indestructible." Tac-A-Moe replied.

"Bullshit. What do you think I am, stupid?" Kelly asked.

"He's not lying. I've tried." Joe said.

"So let me get this straight," Chris said, "Flathead discovered an alloy that is completely indestructible, but he didn't use it to make tanks or walls to his fortress, he used it to make a talking thumbtack?"

"Pretty much," Tac-A-Moe said, "I really don't feel like racing you guys right now, but if I don't at least attempt, I'll get fired. You understand how that is, gotta pay the bills somehow."

"Why don't you just go get a different job?" Chris suggested.

"Man, have you seen that economy? It's tough finding a job out there! Besides, who'd hire an indestructible thumbtack? No high school diploma, no GED, no college diploma, my only reference is a lunatic with a moon base… it's tough to be me." Tac-A-Moe sighed.

"So I guess we should start the race then?" Joe said.

"Guess so." Tac-A-Moe replied. The survivors, Ted, and Tac-A-Moe all took their places on the starting line.

"Ready, set, go!" Tac-A-Moe called out. The survivors immediately started sprinting and collecting the dots on the raceway, Tac-A-Moe was about to move as well, but he found himself being constricted by something large and slimy. He looked and saw that Ted was constricted him with his Smoker tongue. "Hey! No fair! That's cheating!"

"Suck it, Tac-A-Moe!" Kelly called back. Tac-A-Moe sighed.

"I hate this job." The survivors made it to the checkered flag; they piled all of their pellets together and started counting.

"98, 99, 100!" Joe said, "Good work guys, let's get moving."

"Shouldn't we wait for Ted?" Kelly asked.

"Oh yeah, Hey Ted! Hurry up!" Joe called out. Ted came shuffling down the obstacle course and smiled proudly, clearly happy for his contribution. The team put their collected pellets into a slot in the large door blocking their way. Once all the pellets were in the door opened up to reveal an extremely long hallway with all sorts of broken robots and prototypes hanging on the walls. Towards the middle of the hallway there were 10 stasis pods, each one containing a different robotic Joe, and each looked more accurate than the last. However, the final pod was empty.

"Are these the robots you were talking about earlier Joe? The copies?" Chris asked.

"When I told you about Robo Joe, I meant ONE robot, ONE copy. I had no idea that Flathead's been hard at work making more." Joe said. "The fact that this last pod is empty disturbs me. Be prepared guys, I have a bad feeling about this…" The survivors got to the end of the hallway and opened the door. They were treated to a huge room that looked almost like a coliseum.

A voice boomed from a speaker, "Hello there Joe Text. It's been far too long."

"Flathead." Joe replied.

"Why yes, that is my name," Flathead replied, "What are you doing breaking into my home?"

"Don't play dumb with me. I know you have a new model of Robo Joe. Cut the shit and bring it out." Joe demanded.

"That's a shame. I had an intro speech written and everything. Whatever, I suppose I can understand wanting to get your own demise over with." Flathead said. The speakers shut off and the center of the coliseum slowly started opening. A carbon copy of Joe rose from the hole in the ground, as the survivors looked at it in awe. It was flawless. Every single one of Joe's features, his hair, his eyes, his clothing, all perfectly replicated.

Ted must've sensed danger, because he shot his Smoker tongue out at Robo Joe, Robo Joe caught his tongue in midair and yanked on it so hard that it pulled all of Ted's organs out, killing him. The survivors stared at Robo Joe in disbelief. Robo Joe then used Ted's tongue to wrap around Fred's throat.

"Shit! Guys! Help…" Fred cried out, but was interrupted by the sudden swinging of Robo Joe. Robo Joe started spinning around at unbelievable speeds, grinding Fred's face against the walls of the coliseum. Joe, Chris, and Kelly all stared at the horrifying sight, seeing a trail of blood on the coliseum walls wherever Fred had been. Robo Joe eventually let go of the tongue and Fred. Fred's face had been completely rubbed away, revealing the front of his skull. Robo Joe's eyes glowed red as he looked at Joe.

"Impressed Joe? Because now, you die." Flathead said calmly. With those words, Joe readied his flamethrower and sprinted towards Robo Joe. Robo Joe simply stood there, waiting for Joe. As soon as Joe was about to squeeze the trigger on the flamethrower, Robo Joe sprinted towards Joe and grabbed the flamethrower right out of his hands. He broke the flamethrower over his knee and bashed Joe across the head with one of the pieces.

"Fantastic. Guess I'm doing this the old fashioned way." Joe thought as he got up. He threw a punch at Robo Joe, but Robo blocked it with alarming speed and immediately delivered 6 counter attacks to Joe before Joe could even react, bringing Joe back to the floor.

"_Goddamn, he's fast!_" Joe thought as he rose again. He tried to kick Robo Joe, but Robo caught his leg mid kick, grabbed and flipped Joe over his head, smashing him to the floor. He smashed Joe on the floor back and forth as Chris and Kelly watched in horror. Robo Joe threw Joe to the wall opposite the two and ran towards him.

"I can't watch this." Kelly said as she drew her katana and started sprinting over to Robo Joe. She got to the opposite wall where Robo was about to deliver a punch to Joe's face. Kelly raised the katana over Robo's head, but before she could bring it down, Robo caught the blade between his palms, not even turning around. In one extremely fast motion he ripped the katana out of Kelly's hands, spun around, knocked her against the wall and stabbed the katana through her stomach, pinning her to the wall with it.

"KELLY!" Chris screamed. He started running towards Robo Joe, Joe, and Kelly.

"Chris, no! I'll hold Robo off! Go find Flathead!" Joe yelled. Chris stared at the three for a minute. Robo was royally kicking Joe's ass, and he really wanted to go help Kelly. But what could he do? If he tried to help Joe, then he'd end up like Ted, Fred, and Kelly. If Chris went to Kelly, what could he even do for her? So Chris ran away, to the exit opposite the one they had come through.

When Chris went through the door, he saw two signs. One pointing to the left labeled "Armory" and the other pointing right labeled "Control Room". Chris ran to the left, he needed weapons if he was going to take Flathead down. He opened the door to the armory and ran inside. He quickly looked around; he grabbed a grenade launcher and an M16 before he started running back to the coliseum. He ran past the coliseum entrance and to the control room. The door to the control room was heavily guarded by James Hammers, but Chris fired a single grenade into the group and they all exploded like fireworks. After the smoke from the grenade cleared, Chris saw the door was blasted down. He walked in and looked around. He recognized a huge machine as the control console in the blueprints. Chris walked over to it and looked for any switches or buttons of any kind. No luck. Chris walked backwards a bit before pointing his grenade launcher at it, whatever it was, it couldn't be any good.

Chris was about to pull the trigger on the grenade launcher until he heard a voice say, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Chris dropped the grenade launcher, pulled out the M16, turned around and pointed it at the voice's source. He saw a man with a flat head, not dissimilar to Ted's.

"What's all this about? Who are you?" Chris yelled.

"Calm down, calm down, no need to get violent." Flathead said. Chris walked closer to the man, still pointing the gun at him.

"Tell me everything before I blow your fucking brains out!" Chris yelled.

"Very well. What do you want to know?" Flathead responded.

"Who are you?" Chris barked.

"John Bowler. Known as Flathead after my math student, Joe Text, flattened my head in a "tragic accident."" Flathead replied.

"How do I stop the infection?" Chris yelled again.

"I don't know… try asking a medical doctor." Flathead said.

"Don't play dumb with me! I know about the nanomachines, I saw the blueprints! This is your doing!" Chris yelled. Flathead laughed.

"You didn't believe Joe when he told you that he misread the blueprints?" Flathead asked.

"I'm the one asking…" Chris thought for a second, "How do you know Joe said that?"

"Tell me Chris, have you had any injections recently? Like a vaccine?" Flathead asked.

"Hey! I said I'm asking the questions Flathead!" Chris yelled.

"Seriously, think about it. When was your last vaccination?" Flathead replied. Chris reached into the depths of his mind, his last vaccination? He remembered that there were some men from CEDA back at the first safehouse he was at in L.A. that gave him an "immunization against the infection".

"Back in L.A., in a safehouse…" Chris said.

"CEDA gave you one, right?" Flathead asked.

"How do you know all of this?" Chris asked.

"Are you even sure this is real, Chris? Not some sort of hallucination? Or perhaps a dream? You seem very doubtful of even your own existence." Flathead said. Chris stared at the man with the disfigured head.

"You can read my thoughts, can't you?" Chris asked.

"Not quite. I have your thoughts stored on a computer, constantly being sent to me. Observe." Flathead said as he walked over to his desk. He pressed a button, and a monitor turned on. The monitor was split into five distinct sections, each color coded. The one on the far left was blue and said "Joe Text" at the top; the two next to it were simply black screens, with the words "Data Unavailable" in red. The final two columns were green and yellow, labeled "Christopher Underwood" and "Kelly Hatfield". Chris saw the words "holy shit" appear under his own column as he thought them. Flathead shut the monitor off.

"That vaccination you were given wasn't from CEDA, and it certainly wasn't an immunization. Those were my henchmen DISGUISED as CEDA, and it was a liquid filled with nanomachines. The nanomachines rest in your nervous system and give me a readout of your thoughts, I've constantly been watching all five of you. You and Kelly weren't supposed to be injected honestly, but I had extra needles lying around and you were traveling with Joe, so I decided to add you to my database. Of course, I'm not the only one getting a readout of your thoughts." Flathead said as he switched the monitor back on and to "Channel 2", which showed multiple angles of the fight in the coliseum. Joe was getting his ass kicked by Robo Joe.

"Robo Joe v10 is untouchable in this state. Any thought Joe has, or you or Kelly for that matter, is immediately transferred to his brain. He can counter Joe's attacks before Joe even finishes thinking about it." Flathead continued.

"Then why isn't he coming after me?" Chris asked.

"Because he's not programmed to, he merely attacked Kelly in self defense. You must understand that I have nothing against you or Kelly. I get that you went with Joe because it was your best chance for survival." Flathead was silent for a second as he thought to himself; Chris still had the gun pointed at him.

"I have another question for you," Flathead began, "Did you notice something weird about the thought readouts? How two of them were missing?" Chris nodded, and Flathead continued, "That's because those were Fred and Ted's thoughts. They are dead, so I no longer need them. The nanomachines and Robo Joe served their purpose in that regard. Did you notice anything else?" Flathead asked.

"Kelly was still giving you readouts…" Chris answered.

"Exactly. She's still alive, and I can still help her. I've been watching you Chris, I know who you are and what you think about, and I must say, you think about the past a lot. Your biggest fear is that you'll lose her again. I could feel the panic in your thoughts when Robo Joe attacked, that you wouldn't get to speak to her again. It doesn't have to be that way, you two can still be together, and I can help you both. I have it on good authority that Las Vegas held out. You two can start a new life together; you won't have to worry about me or the infected or anything else. All you have to do is lower the gun, and let Robo Joe work his magic." Flathead said, Chris stopped and thought about his proposal.

"Besides, do you even know Joe? He's hidden quite a bit from you, I'm sure you'd be interested to look at his thoughts archive. He's nothing but a stranger and a liar Chris, why should you care about him? Why would you ever put him above Kelly? Your best friend, your childhood friend, your true love, your reason for living! You're always thinking about her. Do you really want her to leave your life again Chris? Do you really want to go back to sitting alone in your apartment, dwelling on the past? I can heal her, and put you two on a shuttle to Vegas. You don't have to live alone Chris, I can help you. All you have to do is lower the gun. Just lower the gun, if not for you or me, then for her." Flathead finished.

Chris looked at Flathead, then he looked at the nanomachine control center, and then he looked at the monitor. Chris saw Kelly struggle against the wall, trying desperately to remove the katana from her abdomen. He saw Joe taking the worst beating possible from Robo Joe. Chris looked at Flathead one more time and gave it a good long thought. Chris then lowered the gun.

"Do you promise to stop at Joe? You won't try and dominate the world or anything?" Chris asked.

"Oh of course! All I want is revenge against the Text lineage, why would I want to dominate a world of infected people anyways? You made the right decision Chris." Flathead said. Flathead turned around and started fiddling with the keyboard. Chris walked back the grenade launcher and picked it up. He then fired it at the control center, destroying it. Flathead heard the explosion and turned around.

"What are you doing?" Flathead yelled. Chris responded by unloading his entire clip of M16 ammo into Flathead. Flathead fell to the ground as Chris reloaded.

"I know about the Wheeties Cannon. You wouldn't stop at Joe, and you weren't looking to dominate the world… you wanted to destroy it." Chris said. After Chris finished reloading, he ran over to a microphone on Flathead's desk and spoke into it. "Joe! Robo Joe's been using the nanomachines to read your thoughts! I destroyed the control center! You have a chance! Don't worry, I'm coming to help!" Chris then ran away from Flathead's desk and into the hall. There was still time, he could still help Joe.

Joe had gotten Chris's message. He could now, theoretically, defeat Robo Joe. Unfortunately, in theory, you can do just about anything. The destruction of the nanomachines certainly hasn't seemed to slow Robo Joe any. Joe was still getting the shit kicked out of him, and he wasn't sure how much more he could take of it.

He tried throwing a punch at Robo Joe, it actually connected this time, but Joe was so weak that it felt like the gentle spring breeze on a smiling child. Robo Joe punched Joe to the floor. Joe tried to get up, but he couldn't. Suddenly he felt Robo's hand wrap around his throat, Robo lifted off the ground and squeezed. Joe tried to get some air, but Robo's hand was firmly around his throat.

"_Please Chris, finish him…_" Joe thought. His vision started blacking out when he felt Robo's grip loosen, suddenly he fell to the floor and looked up. Robo was seemingly just standing there, but then his body split in half and fell to the left and right. When Robo fell, Joe could see that Kelly had removed the katana from her abdomen and used it to split Robo Joe straight down the cerebral column. Kelly collapsed on the ground.

"Joe… Tell Chris… That I said… Goodbye…" Kelly said weakly. Joe crawled over to Kelly and checked her pulse. She was dead. Joe sighed and lied on the ground, he wasn't going to last much longer either at this rate.

Chris finally made it back to the coliseum. To his surprise, he saw Joe, Kelly, and Robo Joe all lying on the ground in the center. Chris, as if by instinct, immediately ran to Kelly and checked her pulse. No heartbeat, she was dead. Chris fought to hold back his tears.

"She told me to say goodbye…" Joe said. Chris looked over at Joe, and saw that he was still alive.

"Joe!" Chris yelled as he ran over and helped him up. Chris slung Joe's arm over his shoulders and started walking with him. Chris grinned at him, "We did it."

"No…" Joe said, "You and Kelly did it… All I did was get the shit kicked out of me…" They slowly passed the corpses of Fred and Ted.

"I'm sorry." Chris said. Joe shook his head.

"You lost someone far more valuable." Joe replied, "I have no brothers. Just chains." Suddenly Chris and Joe felt an intense rumbling.

"WARNING! ROBO JOE HAS BEEN DESTROYED! FAILSAFE ACTIVATED! MOON DESTRUCTION IN T MINUS 10 MINUTES." A computerized voice said. Joe shook himself off of Chris's shoulders and landed on the ground.

"I'm not gonna make it Chris… leave me… get out while you still can…" Joe said.

"No! Not after everything we've been through!" Chris said.

"Whenever there is a meeting… a parting is sure to follow… However… that parting… need not last forever... Whether a parting… be forever or merely… for a short time... That is up to you." Joe said.

"What?" Chris yelled.

"You'll understand one day…" Joe said.

"Joe! The moon is exploding! I won't make it off! Even if I did, things would still be fucked up down on Earth! This is the end!" Chris yelled.

"You can still make it… plus… this won't be… the first time… the moon's been… destroyed…" Joe said.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Chris yelled.

"I have… one last present for you… Jotorcycle… arise…" Joe said. Suddenly, the center of the coliseum opened up to a pit of fire and brimstone, the remains of Robo Joe and Kelly fell in as a golden, flaming, motorcycle rose from the inferno. After which the inferno closed again. Chris stared at it in disbelief.

"Jotorcycle? Exploded before? What are you still hiding from me? Who are you?" Chris yelled.

"I… am…" Joe took one last breath. "a transvestite…" Joe stopped breathing, he was dead. Chris still stared at him in complete confusion. He had no idea what had happened.

"WARNING! T MINUS 5 MINUTES UNTIL MOON DESTRUCTION!" The voice said again. Chris wasted no time; he hopped on the Jotorcycle and started it up. The Jotorcycle immediately took off like a rocket. It went at such intense speeds that Chris could barely hang on, and he felt like his skin was going to come right off his muscles. Chris was about to crash into a wall. Chris panicked; he couldn't control the bloody thing. He noticed a large, red button labeled "blast". Chris held onto it and the Jotorcycle started glowing red as it plowed through the walls of Flathead's fortress, he found himself on the moonscape in no time. He was going at such intense speeds that he found himself back on the stairway in no time. Chris would have no problems getting down to Earth quickly. Chris looked behind him; he saw the huge rock in the sky explode miles behind him. He continued speeding down the stairs, determined to get to Earth.


	12. Epilogue

Chris sat on his bed in his room. He had made it to Vegas. It should've felt like a haven, the military gave him his own room in a "safety complex", they had given him a pistol for self defense, and he even met up with Coach, Rochelle, Ellis, and Nick again.

And yet it felt like a prison. The door of the room was steel, in case zombies attacked. There were windows, but they were barred, in case zombies attacked. But the worst thing about it was that it felt like his apartment back in Miami, which certainly wasn't a good thing. The worst days of his life were spent there.

But really, the building itself wasn't the problem. The problem was that Chris was back at square one. Kelly was gone, and this time, she was gone for good. The one thing that kept Chris hanging on back in Miami was the thought that he would one day see her again. It had given him a sense of hope, a sense of purpose, a reason to struggle through the daily grind, a reason to live.

But now, that sense was lost. Kelly was dead, and Chris was just going through the motions, day by day. He had started seeing less of his fellow survivors, and he spent more and more time alone in his apartment. The more time he spent alone, the more he thought about the events that had happened back on the moon and in L.A.

It was weird, but Chris felt like the best days of his life were just the last few. The time he spent with Kelly and Joe. It was true that Chris had spent all of that time fighting for his life while being chased by brain-hungry zombies, but he had gotten what he wanted most. He had gotten to see Kelly again.

Joe's final words kept ringing in his mind, "Whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow. However, that parting need not last forever... Whether a parting be forever or merely for a short time... That is up to you…" What did that mean? That was up to Chris? How? Joe, perhaps the only other person Chris considered a friend, was dead as well. He had come into Chris's life and turned reality and logic on their heads, and then he went out. Who was he?

These thoughts raced through Chris's mind as his door swung open. Chris jumped, it was Coach.

"Oh Jesus Christ, you scared me. Can you please knock next time?" Chris asked.

"Son, there ain't gonna be a next time." Coach replied.

"What do you mean?" Chris asked.

"There's been rumors circulatin' that the infection's here. That someone's contaminated. We ain't taken no chances. We're leavin' town. Get your gun boy; we're takin' you with us." Coach said as he walked out the room.

Chris sighed. He would have to start running again. He would have to go out there and keep running. Except this time, Kelly wouldn't be by his side. Would it ever end? Or was running from "safe place" to "safe place" going to be the rest of his life?

Chris sighed and opened the drawer in his nightstand. He pulled the pistol out and went out to the hallway with Coach and the others.

"You ready?" Coach asked. Chris thought for a second. No, he wasn't ready. He wasn't ready to begin the nightmare anew. But he had no choice. Chris sighed.

"Yes." Chris replied. Chris began to follow the others, he went into an elevator with the other survivors and started heading down. When it hit the bottom, the other survivors walked out, but Chris stayed in for a second.

"You comin'?" Ellis asked. Chris thought for a second.

"No actually, I have some unfinished business to take care of. You guys go, I'll catch up." Chris said.

"OK, we're gonna be headed west, to the car shop, see if we can find us a ride. Meet us there." Coach said. Chris nodded as he pressed the button to return to his room. Chris understood what Joe meant now. He had a choice. He could still see them again.

When the elevator hit his floor, he walked down the hallway back to his room, he locked the door and walked back to his bed. Chris lied down on the bed and put the gun against his temple.

"Kelly, I'm coming." Chris whispered.

Chris pulled the trigger, and everything faded away.


End file.
